“Of course not. Well, I’ll say no more about my old friend Hubert. I can look him up at the Devonshire to-morrow.”
“The Devonshire,” sighed Maud. “How sad to think that he is one of the few respectable people who can find it in their hearts to be Liberals!”
“Yes, he is on the wrong side, no doubt, but that doesn’t matter to us,” said Jack.
Mrs. Vansittart sighed slightly as she touched her daughter’s fluffy hair, the girl sitting on her low chair between mother and brother.
“My Maud would like her friends to be of the same opinion as herself,” she said, “and she is such an ardent Conservative, and knows so much about politics.”
“At least, I know that I am not a Radical, and that I hate what people call Progress,” protested Maud. “Progress means pulling down every historical house and widening every picturesque street, cutting railways through Arcadian valleys, and turning romantic lakes into reservoirs.”
“And progress sometimes means feeding the hungry, and teaching the ignorant,” said her mother, “and building healthy dwellings for people who are herding in poisonous slums. I think we are all agreed as to the necessity for reform, Maud, whether we are Whigs or Tories.”
“Oh, of course I want people to be taken care of all over the world,” replied Maud, “and I am prouder of our sound, roomy cottages than anything on our estate.”
“Ah, that’s the mother’s work,” said Vansittart. “One can see that a woman’s eye watches over the parish.”
“Sir Hubert tells me they have very good cottages at Hartley,” pursued Maud, “but I cannot imagine either comfort or picturesqueness within twenty miles of Sheffield.”