“My dear,” began George, “I wish your father could be got to vote straight. You see that by not doing so he goes against all the principles of the Independents. Ever since they have been in existence they have always stood up for freedom, and we are having the large yellow flag worked with the words, Civil and Religious Liberty. It will be a bad thing for us if he holds aloof. I cannot understand,” he continued, getting eloquent, “how a Dissenting minister can make up his mind not to vote against a party which has been answerable for all the oppression and all the wrongs in English history, and for all our useless wars, and actually persecuted his predecessors in this very meeting-house in which he now preaches. Besides, to say nothing about the past, just look at what we have before us now. The Tories are the most bitter opponents of Free Trade. I can’t tell you how I feel about it, and I do think that if you were to speak to your mother she would perhaps induce him to change his mind.” It was a long time since he had said so much all at once to his wife. “George, George, I am sure he’s awake!” and she was off out of the room in an instant. Presently she returned. “Mamma came here this afternoon and brought his hood—a new one—such a lovely hood!—and she says he looks more than ever like a Flavel in it.” “I don’t believe you listened to a word of what I was saying.” “Oh yes, I did; you always think I don’t listen; but I can listen to you and watch for him too.” “What did I say?” “Never mind, I know.” “I cannot understand,” he said sullenly, and diverted for a moment from his subject, “why mamma should be always telling _you_ he is a Flavel.” “Well, really, George, why shouldn’t she? Tryphosa said the other day that if you were to take away grandpapa Flavel’s wig and bands from the picture in the _Evangelical Magazine_ he would be just like him.” “It seems to me,” replied George, “that if there’s any nonsense going about the town, it always comes to you. People don’t talk such rubbish to me.” What the effect of this speech might have been cannot be told, for at this moment the baby did really cry, and Priscilla departed hastily for the night. She never spoke to her mother about the election, for, as George suspected, she had not paid the slightest attention to him; and as to exchanging with her mother a single word upon such a subject as politics, or upon any other subject which was in any way impersonal,—she never did such a thing in her life.