"How can you say so, Mr. Hendle, when there's nothing but war and bankruptcy, and silly football matches, and smart society, and----" "Sophy! Sophy! that's enough to go on with," cried Dorinda, smiling. "Don't give us too much to think about." "You never think at all, Dorinda. You are fainthearted about our votes." "I don't think you'll get them by destroying property and having hunger strikes," replied Dorinda, with a shrug. "What do you say, Kit?" Kit blushed and wriggled, for Sophy's eye was on him. "I don't say anything you know. I never do. The motor business takes up all my attention." Then he hurriedly changed the subject, lest his lady-love should fall foul of him for his shirking. "I hope Sophy will gain her ends easier in Australia." "I'm not going to Australia, Kit. I told you that and I told your mother." "Mrs. Beatson," said Carrington, pricking up his ears. "Does she want you to go to Australia, Miss Tollart?" "She wants to go herself." "That's news to me," observed Hendle, with a start. "It's news to all of us," put in Kit, dismally. "The worst of mother is that you never know what she'll be up to next. The other day she came to me and said that she soon hoped to inherit an annuity of two hundred a year and intended to go to Australia. She wants Sophy and me to come with her." Hendle, Dorinda and Carrington exchanged glances. "Who is leaving this annuity to your mother?" asked Rupert, guessing the source of the windfall. "She didn't say," replied Kit, "some old aunt, I fancy. But I don't want to go with mother. She and Sophy never get on well together." "How can we when she wants everyone to bow down to her?" said Miss Tollart, who hated Mrs. Beatson thoroughly. "I'm not of the bowing-down sort. And when I marry, I want my house to myself." "Natural enough," observed Carrington, who was listening eagerly. "And Mrs. Beatson wants you all to live together on her annuity?" "Not exactly that," said Kit reluctantly. "She won't keep us, but hopes that in Australia I shall make more money out of motors." "She may hope," said Sophy positively; "and, if she is disappointed, she will have to be. You are not going to Australia, Kit. My father needs my care, and I can't leave him." It seemed to Carrington that between Kit's mother and his future wife's father, the poor young fellow was in a most uncomfortable position. However, for obvious reasons, connected with Sophy, he did not say so and contented himself with the remark that he thought Dr. Tollart very clever. "When I came down here first, I called in to get a cure for toothache and he gave me one which acted like a charm." Sophy, who seemed to have a deep affection for her disreputable parent, colored with pleasure as she rose to go. "Father has his faults, but he is a very clever man," she said emphatically; "but for his failing he would be in Harley Street as a Specialist."