"Yes," answered Sir Temple, "we across the water know that you people are deuced fond of managing--Beg pardon.--But let me tell you what Walpole, our former minister, said one day when I dined with him. 'Going to America, I understand?' he asked. I said I was. 'Well, I hope over there they'll let you travel in the way it pleases you, it's more than they did to our orders; there is such an ado if those people are not handled with velvet gloves, and the thickest velvet we have, too. I would like you to tell me if you can make out what it all means,' he said." "And so you're taking notes to see what sort of a set we are? One thing, Sir Temple, you'll find us loyal to our mother, though she does domineer sometimes. And tell Sir Robert that children old enough to contribute to the support of the family, as we do, ought to be allowed to put in a word now and then as to its management." Sir Temple looked at her, not having an answer ready and little dreaming that a generation later this truth that the beautiful lips had uttered so simply, yet with a proud curve through their merriment, would be forced upon the English ministry at the point of the bayonet. But he lived to see it. Then he thought more than once of this day, of Elizabeth, with her dignity and her brightness, who had seen into the heart of one of the world's great struggles and had spoken the thought that later the cannon of a nation thundered through the earth. Now, however, he looked at her without a full idea of her meaning, thinking her only clever, and ready, and a trifle wanting in respect toward the powers that be, and that this lack came from her youth and should be treated with indulgence. It was a woman's way of looking at things, he said to himself, for he recognized sometimes the same spirit in Lady Dacre. "Florence seems well entertained," he said aloud, looking at his wife, who was laughing at one of Edmonson's sallies. "That's a brilliant fellow, Mistress Royal; he will make his mark in the world; it's a pity, though, he hasn't a fortune to help him forward; he ought to be in Parliament." "So he thinks, perhaps," she answered, remembering something that he had said to her one day on his first visit to the country, and understanding more clearly than ever the use that she might have been in the world.