THE VOTE.
"And now," I said, "that you've got your dear vote, what are you going to do with it?"
"If," said Francesca, "you'll promise to treat it as strictly confidential I'll tell you."
"There you are," I said. "Unless you can make a secret out of it you take no pleasure in it. You're just like a lot of girls who—"
"I'm not. I'm not even like one girl. I wish I was."
"I don't. I like your mature intellect. I can't do without your balanced judgment."
"Thanks; it's pleasant to be appreciated as one deserves. And now I'll tell you what I'm going to do with my vote. When the time comes I shall take it with me into what's called a polling-booth, and I shall demand a piece of paper, and then—yes, then I shall destroy the sanctity of the home and neglect my children, and, incidentally, I shall break up the Empire, and do all the other dreadful things that you and the others have been prophesying; and I shall do them simply by making a cross opposite the name of the candidate who's got the nicest eyes and the prettiest moustache. That's what I shall do with my vote. I shall vote with it by ballot. What else could I do?"
"Great Heaven! Francesca, how can you be so frivolous? Are you aware that politics, in which you are now to play a part however humble, are a serious matter?"