Bride paused to look at her cousin’s face, which was full of an enthusiasm and glad hopefulness that was almost infectious. Instead of taking the covered way back to the castle, the cousins were slowly following the longer road by which horses and carriages travelled. Bride caught her long skirt up with one hand, the other held her whip. Her face was flushed with the surprise of this second unlooked-for encounter. Eustace thought he had never seen her look more lovely than at this moment, in the close-fitting habit and picturesque hat with its waving plume. “A dissolution!” she exclaimed; “I thought the king was altogether averse to that. I thought your bill had just achieved its second triumph.” “It has, and it has not. The papers have kept you conversant with the bald facts of the case. But what it comes to is this, that without a more powerful majority than we have now, such a measure as ours cannot be successfully passed through the House. It would be so mauled and mutilated in committee that it would utterly fall to pieces. We must know now what the country feels on this great question. We must feel the pulse of the nation. It is the only thing to do. The king was against the measure; but the voice of wisdom prevailed. As soon as his consent was gained, I took horse and started off. I wished to be the first to bring the news to Penarvon. Tell me, Bride, what have these six months done for my uncle in modifying or changing his views on this question? He now knows the just and moderate terms of the bill. Does he feel against it all the same prejudice he did at the outset, when we none of us knew exactly on what lines it had been framed?” “I do not think he feels any very great hostility to the present bill,” answered Bride quietly. “He has fully recognised that there are abuses with regard to the representation of the country that may well be mended, and on the whole I think he admits the present measure to be moderate and wise. But he knows as well as you know that this is only the beginning, and whilst you approve heart and soul the movement of which it is the pioneer, he distrusts and dreads it. That is why the success of even a wise measure fills him with no enthusiasm. He still believes that the abuses which will grow up under your new régime, when it is established, will far transcend those which flourish under the old, and that sin and want and misery will increase rather than diminish. That is as much as I can tell you of his opinions, for he does not talk of this thing often. The subject is rather a painful one to him. It brings with it a sense of helplessness, a sense of drifting away from the old moorings into a troubled sea for which he has no chart or compass. I think he knows that the thing must be; but he does not look forward with joy to the future it will bring in its wake.”