"Did you go often to the House, Helen? Now for my questions.
"Yes, I went when there was anything worth going to hear."
"And I suppose that was not often."
"Hard on the M.P.P.'s, Josie," said Marguerite, smiling.
"Not half hard enough!" said the girl, vehemently. "They go there and sit and have a good time at the expense of the Province, and show off a little with a passage-at-arms now and then that suggests more of a gladiatorial arena than that of a body of august law-givers!"
"Oh, mercy! hear the girl!" cried Marguerite, raising her hands in tender appeal.
"I tell you it's the truth; I will ask Helen if it is not so," cried the speaker turning to the latter for answer.
"I must confess that to a certain extent Josie is not far astray. I have seen exhibitions of cross-firing not strictly in accordance with one's ideas of a gentleman. But I suppose sometimes they forget themselves."
"A gentlemen never forgets himself, Helen. Although you have high-toned notions of the Capital, and granting that you have been lionized right and left, it does not excuse you from exercising a sense of right and wrong."
Marguerite could not but admire the brave girl with such an earnest look upon her face. The laughing, romping hoyden was capable of sound sensible argument, her character was made up of opposites; and Helen Rushton, clever in many things, was almost baffled.