"Oh no, not settled. We shall be there a couple of months." "The house will want some doing up, Mark thinks." "I don't think so. Not much anyway. It does very well." There was an entire absence of girlish softness or shyness in the speaker's manner, though it was both courteous and easy. The voice--musically deep--and the splendid black eyes, that looked so steadily at her, intimidated Mark Winnington's gentle sister. Mrs. Andrews, whose dress, after Susy's ministration, had been declared out of danger, bent across the tea-table, all smiles and benevolence again, the plumes in her black hat nodding-- "It's like old times to have the Abbey open again, Miss Blanchflower! Every week we used to go to your dear grandmother, for her Tuesday work-party. I'm afraid you'll hardly revive _that_!" Delia brought a rather intimidating brow to bear upon the speaker. "I'm afraid not." Lady Tonbridge, who had already greeted Delia as a woman naturally greets the daughter of an old friend, came up as Delia spoke to ask for a second cup of tea, and laid her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Very sorry to miss you yesterday. I won't insult you by saying you've grown. How about the singing? You used to sing I remember when I stayed with you." "Yes--but I've given it up. I took lessons at Munich last spring. But I can't work at it enough. And if one can't work, it's no good." "Why can't you work at it?" Delia suddenly looked up in her questioner's face. Her gravity broke up in a broad smile. "Because there's so much else to do." "What else?" The look of excited defiance in the girl's eyes sharpened. "Do you really want to know?" "Certainly. The Suffrage and that kind of thing?" said Madeleine Tonbridge lightly. "The Suffrage and that kind of thing!" repeated Delia, still smiling. Captain Andrews who was standing near, and whose martial mind was all in confusion, owing to Miss Blanchflower's beauty, put in an eager word. "I never can understand, Miss Blanchflower, why you ladies want the vote! Why, you can twist us round your little fingers!" Delia turned upon him. "But I don't want to twist you round my little finger!" she said, with energy. "It wouldn't give me the smallest pleasure." "I thought you wanted to manage us," said the Captain, unable to take his eyes from her. "But you do manage us already!" Delia's glance showed her uncertain whether the foe was worth her steel. "We want to manage ourselves," she said at last, smiling indifferently. "We say you do it badly." The Captain attempted to spar with her a little longer. Winnington meanwhile stood, a silent listener, amid the group round the tea-table. He--and Dr. France--were both acutely conscious of the realities behind this empty talk; of the facts recorded in the day's newspapers; and of the connection between the quiet lady in grey who had come in with Delia Blanchflower, and the campaign of public violence, which was now in good earnest alarming and exasperating the country.