The twins were not in the least alike, either in disposition or appearance, but they were inseparable. They were known to their large circle of friends and still more numerous censors as "Uz" and "Buz," but their real names were Lionel and Hilary, a fact they rigidly suppressed at all times.

Buz was tall for his age, slender and fair, with regular, Grantly features, and eyes like his mother's. Uz was short and chubby, tirelessly mischievous, and of an optimistic cheerfulness that neither misfortune nor misunderstanding could diminish. Buz was the reading Ffolliot, imaginative, and easily swayed by what he read; and his was the fertile brain that created and suggested all manner of wrong-doing to his twin. Just then the mania of both was for impersonation. "To dress up," and if possible to mislead their fellow-creatures as to their identity, was their chief aim in life. Here, the "prettiness" that in his proper person Buz deplored and abhorred came in useful. He made a charming girl, his histrionic power was considerable, and on both accounts he was much in demand at school theatricals; moreover, his voice had not yet broken, and when he desired to do so he could speak with lady-like softness and precision.

"Who's the chap that read the second lesson?" he asked Ger, who proudly walked between the twins on their way from church. Ger adored the twins.

"He's the muddy young man who came last Sunday," Ger answered promptly. Proud to be able to afford information, he continued, "His aunt's our nice Miss Gallup, and he's going to get in at the Election, nurse says."

"Oh, is he?" cried Uz, whose political views were the result of strong conviction unbiassed by reflection. "We'll see about that."

"I feel," Buz murmured dreamily, "that it is my duty to find out that young man's views on Female Suffrage. The women in this district appear to me sadly indifferent as to this important question. It's doubtful if any of them will tackle him. Now I'm well up in it just now, owing to that rotten debate last term."

"When that long-winded woman jawed for nearly an hour, d'you mean?" asked Uz "Exactly. I never dreamt she would come in useful, but you never know."

"Shall you call?" Uz gurgled delightedly. "Where'll you get the clothes? Mary's would be too big, besides everyone about here knows 'em, they're so old, and she'd never lend you anything decent.'

"I shouldn't ask her if I really wanted them; but in this instance I scorn the mouldy garments of Sister Mary."

"Whose'll you get?" Uz asked curiously.

"My son," Buz rejoined, "I shall be like the king's daughter in the Psalms. Never you fear for my appearance. As our dear French prose book would remark: 'The grandmother of the young man so attractive has a maid French, of the heart excellent, and of the habits most chic.'"

"You mean AdÈle will lend them?"

"You bet. She says I speak her tongue to the marvel, is it not?"

On Boxing-Day Eloquent called upon as many of the vote-possessing inhabitants of Redmarley as could be got in before his aunt's early dinner. He found but few at home, for on that morning there is always a meet in the market-place at Marlehouse, and the male portion of the inhabitants is sporting both by inclination and tradition. He found the wives, however, and on the whole they were gracious to him. His visit pleased, for the then member, Mr Brooke, had not been near Redmarley for years, and left the whole constituency to his agent, who was nearly as slack as the member for Marlehouse himself.

Eloquent, who had by no means made up his mind as to Female Suffrage, was much relieved that not a single woman in Redmarley had so much as breathed its name. His inclinations led him to follow where Mr Asquith led, but his long training in the doctrines of expediency gave him pause. He decided that he could not yet range himself alongside of the anti-suffrage party. As his old father was wont to remark cautiously, "You must see where you are first," and as yet Eloquent had not clearly discovered his whereabouts.

He ate his cold turkey with an excellent appetite, feeling that he had spent a useful if arduous morning. The give-and-take of ordinary conversation was always a difficult matter for Eloquent, but on this occasion he related his experiences to his aunt, and was quite talkative; so that, to a certain extent, she revised her unfavourable impression as to his conversational powers, and became more hopeful for his success in the Election. His gloom and taciturnity on Christmas Day had filled her with forebodings.

In the afternoon he devoted himself to his correspondence. His aunt gave up the parlour to him and went out to see her friends, while he sat in stately solitude at a table covered with papers plainly parliamentary in kind.

For about an hour he worked on undisturbed. Presently he heard the front gate creak, and looking up beheld a bicycle, a lady's bicycle, propped against the garden wall. Someone rapped loudly at the front door, and whoever it was had hard knuckles, for there was no knocker.

Presently Em'ly-Alice, Miss Gallup's little maid, appeared holding a card between her finger and thumb, and announced—"A young lady come to see you, please, sir."

For one mad moment Eloquent thought it might perhaps be Mary with some message for his aunt, but the card disillusioned him. It was a very shiny card, and on it was written in ink in round, very distinct writing—

"Miss Elsmaria Buttermish."

He had barely time to take this in before Miss Buttermish herself appeared.

"I'm glad to have found you at home, Mr Gallup," she announced easily; "I come on behalf of our beloved leaders to obtain a clear statement of your views as to 'Votes for Women,' for on those views a great deal depends. Kindly state them as clearly and concisely as you can."

Miss Buttermish drew up a chair to the table, sat down and produced a note-book and pencil; while Eloquent, speechless with astonishment and dismay, stood on the other side of it holding the shiny visiting-card in his hand.

Miss Buttermish tapped with her pencil on the table and regarded him enquiringly.

Apparently quite young, she was also distinctly pleasing to the eye. She wore an exceedingly well cut, heavily braided black coat and skirt, the latter of the tightest and skimpiest type of a skimpy period. Her hat was of the extinguisher order, entirely concealing her hair, except that just in the front a few soft curls were vaguely visible upon her forehead. A very handsome elderly-looking black fox stole threw up the whiteness of her rounded chin in strong relief, and her eyes looked large and mysterious through the meshes of her most becoming veil. Eloquent was conscious of a certain familiarity in her appearance. He was certain that he had seen her before somewhere, and couldn't recall either time or place.

"I'm waiting, Mr Gallup," she remarked pleasantly. "You must have made up your mind one way or other upon this important question, and it will save both my time and your own if you state your views—may I say, as briefly as possible."

Eloquent gasped . . . "I fear," he said, "that I have by no means made up my mind with any sort of finality—it is such a large question. . . . I have not yet had time to go into it as thoroughly as I could wish. . . . There is so much to be said on both sides."

"There," Miss Buttermish interrupted, "you are mistaken; there is nothing to be said for the 'antis.' Their arguments are positively . . . footling."

"I cannot," Eloquent said stiffly, "agree with you."

"Sit down, Mr Gallup," Miss Buttermish said kindly, at the same time getting up and seating herself afresh on a corner of the sofa. "We've got to thresh this matter out, and you've got to make up your mind whether you are for or against us. You are young, and I think that you hardly realise the forces that will be arrayed against you if you join hands with Mr Asquith on this question."

Miss Buttermish sat up very stiff and straight on the end of the sofa, and Eloquent, still standing with the table between them, felt rather like a naughty boy in the presence of an accusing governess. The allusion to his youth rankled. He did not sit down, but stood where he was, staring darkly at his guest. After a very perceptible pause he said:

"It is impossible for me to give you a definite opinion . . ."

"It's not an opinion I want," Miss Buttermish interrupted scornfully, "it's a definite guarantee. Otherwise, young man, you may make up your mind to incessant interruption and . . . to various other annoyances which I need not enumerate. We don't care a bent pin whether you are a Liberal or a Tory or a red-hot Socialist, so long as you are sound on the Suffrage question. If you are in favour of 'Votes for Women,' then we'll help you; if not . . . I advise you to put up your shutters."

Eloquent flushed angrily and, strangely enough, so did Miss Buttermish at the same moment. In fact, no sooner had she spoken the last sentence than she looked extremely hot and uncomfortable.

"I see no use," he said coldly, "in prolonging this interview. I cannot give you the guarantee you wish for. It is not my custom to make up my mind upon any question of political importance without considerable research and much thought. Intimidation would never turn me from my course if, after such investigation, I should decide against your cause. Nor would any annoyance your party may inflict upon me now, affect my support of your cause should I, ultimately, come to believe in its justice."

Miss Buttermish rose. "Mr Gallup," she said solemnly, "there is at present a very wide-spread discontent among us. Till we get the vote we shall manifest that discontent, and I warn you that the lives of members of Parliament and candidates who are not avowedly on our side will be made"—here Miss Buttermish swallowed hastily . . . "most unpleasant. Those that are not for us are against us, and . . . we are very much up against them. I am sorry we should part in anger . . ."

"Pardon me," Eloquent interrupted, "there is no anger on my side. I respect your opinions even though as yet I may not wholly share them."

Miss Buttermish shook her head. "I'm really sorry for you," she murmured; "you are young, and you little know what you are letting yourself in for."

Eloquent opened the parlour door for her with stiff politeness, and she passed out with bent head and shoulders that trembled under the heavy fur. Surely this militant young person was not going to cry!

He followed her in some anxiety down to the garden gate, held it open for her to pass through, which she did in absolute silence, and he waited to watch her mount her bicycle.

This she did in a very curious fashion. She started to run with it, leapt lightly on one pedal, and then, to Eloquent's amazement, essayed to throw her other leg over like a boy.

The lady's skirt was tight, the Redmarley roads were extremely muddy, the unexpected jerk caused the bicycle to skid, and lady and bicycle came down sideways with considerable violence.

"Damn!" exclaimed Miss Buttermish.

"Oh, those modern girls!" thought the shocked Eloquent as he ran forward to assist. He pulled the bicycle off Miss Buttermish, and stood it against the wall. She sat up, her hat very much on one side.

"Do you know," she said rather huskily, "I do believe I've broken my confounded arm."

She held out her left hand to Eloquent, who pulled her to her feet. Her right arm hung helpless, and even through her bespattered veil he could see that she was very white.

"Pray come in and rest for a little," he said concernedly, "and we can see what has happened."

"I'm sure it's broken, I heard the beastly thing snap——" the girl stumbled blindly, Eloquent caught her in his arms, and saw that she had fainted from pain.

He carried her into the house and laid her on the horsehair sofa, put a cushion under her arm, and seizing the large scissors that his orderly aunt kept hanging on a hook at the side of the fire, cut her jacket carefully along the seam from wrist to shoulder. She wore a very mannish, coloured flannel shirt. This sleeve, too, he cut, and disclosed a thin arm, extremely brown nearly to the elbow, and very fair and white above, but the elbow was distorted and discoloured; a bad break, Eloquent decided, with mischief at the joint as well probably. He had studied first-aid at classes, and he shook his head. It did not occur to him to call the little servant to assist him. With his head turned shyly away he removed the young lady's hat and loosened her heavy furs. Then he flew for water and a sponge, thinking the while of her curious Christian name "Elsmaria." She looked pathetically young and helpless lying there. Eloquent forgot her militancy and her shocking language in his sorrow over her pain. As he knelt down by the sofa to sponge her face he started so violently that he upset a great deal of the water he had brought.

It was already growing dark, but even in the dim light as he looked closely at Miss Buttermish without her hat, her likeness to Mary Ffolliot was striking. She wore her hair cropped close. "Could she have been in prison?" thought Eloquent, remembering how light she was when he carried her in.

With hands that trembled somewhat he pushed the wet curly hair back from the forehead so like Mary's. There were the same wide brow, the same white eyelids with the sweeping arch and thick dark lashes, the delicate high-bridged nose and well-cut, kindly mouth; the same pure oval in the line of cheek and chin.

Certainly an extraordinary resemblance. She must at least be a cousin; and, in spite of his sincere commiseration of the young lady's suffering, he felt a jubilant thrill in the reflection that this accident must bring him into further contact with the Ffolliots.

There was no brandy in the house, for both he and his aunt were total abstainers, so he fetched a glass of water and held it to the young lady's lips as she opened her eyes. She drank eagerly, looked searchingly at him, then she glanced down at her bare arm and the cut sleeve. The colour flooded her face, and with real horror in her voice she exclaimed, "You've never gone and cut that jacket!"

"I had to. Your arm ought to be set at once, and goodness knows where the doctor may be to-day. You'd best be taken to Marlehouse Infirmary, I think; it's a bad break."

"But it's her best coat, quite new," Miss Buttermish persisted fretfully, "quite new; you'd no business to go and cut it. I promised to take such care of it."

"I'm very sorry," Eloquent replied meekly; "but it really was necessary that your arm should be seen to at once, and I dared not jerk it about."

"Can it be mended, do you think, so that it won't show?" There was real concern in her voice.

"I'm sure of it," he answered, much astonished at this fuss about a coat at such a moment; "I cut it carefully along the seam."

"I say," exclaimed Miss Buttermish, "I must get out of this"—and she prepared to swing her feet off the sofa—rather big feet, he noted, in stout golfing shoes. Forcibly he held her legs down.

"Please don't," he implored. "You must not jar that arm any more than can be helped. Shall I go up to the Manor House and get them to send a conveyance for you?—you really mustn't think of walking, and I don't know where else we could get one to-day."

Miss Buttermish closed her eyes and frowned heavily. Then in a faint voice—

"How do you know I'm from the Manor House?"

"Well, for one thing, you're very like . . . the family."

"All of them?" she asked anxiously.

"You are very like certain members of the family I have seen," he said cautiously. "May I go? I'll send the servant to sit with you——"

Miss Buttermish clutched at him violently with her left hand, exclaiming, "No, no—don't send anybody yet; I must get out of this beastly skirt before anyone comes. . . . Look here, you're a very decent chap and I'm sorry I rotted you—will you play the game when you go home and hide these beastly clothes before anyone comes? The blessed thing hooks at the side, see; it's coming undone now; if you'll just give a pull I can wriggle out without getting up. . . . Oh, confound . . . I'm Buz, you know, I dressed up on purpose to rot you . . . but if you could not mention it . . ."

Her head fell back and she nearly fainted again from pain. Eloquent divested her of her skirt, and with it the last remnant of Miss Buttermish disappeared—a slim slip of a boy in running shorts, with bare knees, and a gym-belt lay prone on the sofa, very pale and shivering.

In absolute silence Eloquent folded the skirt and the coat, and laying hat and furs on the top, placed them in a neat heap on a chair in the corner.

He went to his bedroom, fetched the eiderdown off his own bed and covered the boy with it. As he was tucking in the eiderdown at the side Buz put out a cold left hand and held him by the coat sleeve, saying curiously—"Are you in an awful bait? are you going to be really stuffy about it?"

Eloquent looked straight into the quizzical grey eyes that held his.
The boy's voice belied the eyes, for it was anxious.

"Of course not," he said quite seriously, "I'm only too sorry your trick should have had such a disastrous conclusion. Who shall I ask for up at the house, and what shall I do with the things?"

"Oh take them with you—could you? Give 'em to Fusby, and tell him to put them in their rooms—the furs are granny's. He'll do it and never say a word; decent old chap, Fusby. I say, I'm awfully sorry to be such a nuisance. I'm certain I could walk home if you'll let me."

"That you certainly must not do, I'll go at once. Here's the hand-bell. I'll tell the maid that she is to come if you ring. I expect my aunt will be in directly—I'll be as quick as I can—cheer up."

Eloquent bustled about putting the remains of Miss Buttermish tidily into his suit-case while the grey eyes followed his movements with amused interest.

"I'm most awfully obliged," said Buz in a very low voice; "I do feel such an ass lying here."

There was a murmur of voices in the passage. The front door was closed with quiet decorum and the little sitting-room grew darker. Two big tears rolled over and Buz sniffed helplessly, for his handkerchief was in the pocket of the jacket lately worn with such gay impudence by Miss Elsmaria Buttermish.