Claudine stood gloomily watching her, while Mirabelle Marie sat down, and shifting her hands from her hips, laid them on her trembling knees. "I guess he'll drive us out of this, Biddy,—an' I like Sleepin' Water."
Bidiane lifted her face to the ceiling, just as if she were "taking a vowel," her aunt reflected, in her far from perfect English. "He shall not ruin us, my aunt,—we will ruin him."
"What'll you do, sissy?"
"I will tell you something about politics," said Bidiane, immediately becoming calm. "Mr. Nimmo has explained to me something about them, and if you listen, you will understand. In the first place, do you know what politics are?" and hastily wiping her eyes, she intently surveyed the two women who were hanging on her words.
"Yes, I know," said her aunt, joyfully. "It's when men quit work, an' gab, an' git red in the face, an' pass the bottle, an' pick rows, to fine out which shall go up to the city of Boston to make laws an' sit in a big room with lots of other men."
Bidiane, with an impatient gesture, turned to Claudine. "You know better than that?"
"Well, yes,—a little," said the black-eyed beauty, contemptuously.
"My aunt," said Bidiane, solemnly, "you have been out in the world, and yet you have many things to learn. Politics is a science, and deep, very deep."
"Is it?" said her aunt, humbly. "An' what's a science?"
"A science is—well, a science is something wonderfully clever—when one knows a great deal. Now this Dominion of Canada in which we live is large, very large, and there are two parties of politicians in it. You know them, Claudine?"