"They are your duty," argued Ethel. "Duty brings peace."
"They were not," said Flora.
"They are now," said Ethel.
"Dinners and parties, empty talk and vain show," said Flora languidly. "Are you come to their defence, Ethel? If you could guess how sick one gets of them, and how much worse it is for them not to be hateful! And to think of bringing my poor little girl up to the like, if she is spared!"
"If they are not duties, I would not do them," said Ethel.
"Ethel," cried her sister, raising herself from her couch eagerly, "I will say it to you! What should you think of George resigning his seat, and living in peace here?"
"Would he?" said Ethel.
"If I wished it."
"But what would he do with himself?" said Ethel, not in too complimentary a strain.
"Yachting, farming, Cochin-Chinese--or something," said Flora. "Anything not so wearing as this!"
"That abominable candidate of Tomkins's would come in!" exclaimed Ethel. "Oh, Flora, that would be horrid!"
"That might be guarded against," said Flora. "Perhaps Sir Henry-- But oh! let us leave politics in peace while we can. I thought we should do some great good, but it is all a maze of confusion. It is so hard to know principles from parties, and everything goes wrong! It is of no use to contend with it!"
"It is never vain to contend with evil," said Ethel.
"We are not generalising," said Flora. "There is evil nearer home than the state of parties, and I can't see that George's being in Parliament--being what he is--is anything like the benefit to things in general--that it is temptation and plague to me, besides the risk of London life for the baby, now and hereafter."
"I can't say that I think it is," said Ethel. "How nice it would be to have you here! I am so glad you are willing to give it up."
"It would have been better to have given it up untasted--like Norman," sighed Flora. "I will talk to George."
"But, Flora," said Ethel, a little startled, "you ought not to do such a thing without advice."
"There will be worry enough before it is done!" sighed Flora. "No fear of that!"
"Stop a minute," said Ethel, as if poor Flora could have done anything but lie still on her sofa. "I think you ought to consider well before you set it going."
"Have not I longed for it day and night? It is an escape from peril for ourselves and our child."
"I can't be sure!" said Ethel. "It may be more wrong to make George desert the post which--"
"Which I thrust him into," said Flora. "My father told me as much."
"I did not mean you to say that! But it is a puzzle. It seems as if it were right to give up such things; yet, when I recollect the difficulty of carrying an election right at Stoneborough, I think papa would be very sorry. I don't think his interest would bring in any sound man but his son-in-law; and George himself seems to like his parliamentary life better than anything else."
"Yes," said Flora hesitatingly; for she knew it was true--he liked to think himself important, and it gave him something to think of, and regular occupation--not too active or onerous; but she could not tell Ethel what she herself felt; that all she could do for him could not prevent him from being held cheap by the men among whom she had placed him.
"Then," said Ethel, as she heard her affirmative, "I don't think it is for his dignity, for you to put him into Parliament to please you and then take him out to please you."
"I'll take care of his dignity," said Flora shortly.
"I know you would do it well--"
"I am sick of doing things well!" said poor Flora. "You little know how I dread reading up all I must read presently! I shall lose all I have scarcely gained. I cannot find peace any way, but by throwing down the load I gave my peace for."
"Whether this is truth or fancy," said Ethel thoughtfully. "If you would ask some one competent."
"Don't you know there are some things one cannot ask?" said Flora. "I don't know why I spoke to you! Ah! come in! Why, George, that is a finer egg than ever," as he entered with a Shanghai egg in each hand, for her to mark with the date when it had been laid. Poultry was a new hobby, and Ethel had been hearing, in her tete-a-tete dinners with George, a great deal about the perfections of the hideous monsters that had obtained fabulous prices. They had been the best resource for conversation; but she watched, with something between vexation and softness, how Flora roused herself to give her full attention and interest to his prosing about his pets, really pleased as it seemed; and, at last, encouraging him actually to fetch his favourite cock to show her; when she went through the points of perfection of the ungainly mass of feathers, and did not at all allow Ethel to laugh at the unearthly sounds of disapproval which handling elicited.
"And this is our senator!" thought Ethel. "I wonder whether Honorius's hen was a Shanghai! Poor Flora is right--it is poor work to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear! but, putting him into the place is one thing, taking him out another. I wish she would take advice; but I never knew her do that, except as a civil way of communicating her intentions. However, she is not quite what she was! Poor dear! Aunt Flora will never believe what a beautiful creature she used to be! It seems wrong to think of her going back to that horrid London; but I can't judge. For my part, I'd rather do work, than no work for George, and he is a good, kind-hearted fellow after all! I won't be a crab!"
So Ethel did her best, and said the cock had a bright eye--all she could say for him--and George instructed her to admire the awkward legs, and invited her to a poultry show, at Whitford, in two days' time--and they sent him away to continue his consultations with the poultry woman, which pullets should be preferred as candidates for a prize.
"Meta set him upon this," said Flora. "I hope you will go, Ethel. You see he can be very happy here."
"Still," said Ethel, "the more I think, the more sure I am that you ought to ask advice."
"I have asked yours," said Flora, as if it were a great effort. "You don't know what to say--I shall do what I see to be the only way to rest."
"I do know what to say," said Ethel; "and that is, do as the Prayer- book tells you, in any perplexity."
"I am not perplexed," said Flora.
"Don't say so. This is either the station to which God has called you, or it is not."
"He never called me to it."
"But you don't know whether you ought to leave it. If you ought not, you would be ten times more miserable. Go to Richard, Flora--he belongs to you as much as I--he has authority besides."
"Richard!"
"He is the clearest of us all in practical matters," said Ethel, preventing what she feared would be disparaging. "I don't mean only that you should ask him about this Parliament matter alone; but I am sure you would be happier and more settled if you talked things over with him before--before you go to church."
"You don't know what you propose."
"I do," said Ethel, growing bolder. "You have been going all this time by feeling. You have never cleared up, and got to the bottom of, your troubles."
"I could not talk to any one."
"Not to any one but a clergyman. Now, to enter on such a thing is most averse to your nature; and I do believe that, for that very reason, it would be what would do you most good. You say you have recovered sense of-- Oh, Flora! I can't talk of what you have gone through; but if you have only a vague feeling that seems as if lying still would be the only way to keep it, I don't think it can be altogether sound, or the 'quiet conscience' that is meant."
"Oh, Ethel! Ethel! I have never told you what I have undergone, since I knew my former quietness of conscience was but sleep! I have gone on in agony, with the sense of hypocrisy and despair, because I was afraid, for George's sake, to do otherwise."