 Miss Volumnia, clasping her hands. »Are we
safe?«
    The mighty business is nearly over by this time, and Doodle will throw
himself off the country in a few days more. Sir Leicester has just appeared in
the long drawing-room after dinner; a bright particular star, surrounded by
clouds of cousins.
    »Volumnia,« replies Sir Leicester, who has a list in his hand, »we are doing
tolerably.«
    »Only tolerably!«
    Although it is summer weather, Sir Leicester always had his own particular
fire in the evening. He takes his usual screened seat near it, and repeats, with
much firmness and a little displeasure, as who should say, I am not a common
man, and when I say tolerably, it must not be understood as a common expression;
»Volumnia, we are doing tolerably.«
    »At least there is no opposition to you,« Volumnia asserts with confidence.
    »No, Volumnia. This distracted country has lost its senses in many respects,
I grieve to say, but -«
    »It is not so mad as that. I am glad to hear it!«
    Volumnia's finishing the sentence restores her to favour. Sir Leicester,
with a gracious inclination of his head, seems to say to himself, »A sensible
woman this, on the whole, though occasionally precipitate.«
    In fact, as to this question of opposition, the fair Dedlock's observation
was superfluous: Sir Leicester, on these occasions, always delivering in his own
candidateship, as a kind of handsome wholesale order to be promptly executed.
Two other little seats that belong to him, he treats as retail orders of less
importance; merely sending down the men, and signifying to the tradespeople,
»You will have the goodness to make these materials into two members of
parliament, and to send them home when done.«
    »I regret to say, Volumnia, that in many places the people have shown a bad
spirit, and that this opposition to the Government has been of a most determined
and most implacable description.«
    »W-r-retches!« says Volumnia.
    »Even,« proceeds Sir Leicester, glancing at the circumjacent cousins on
sofas and ottomans, »even in many - in fact, in most - of those places in which
the Government has carried it against a faction -«
    (Note, by the way, that the Coodleites are always a faction with the
Doodleites, and that the Doodleites occupy exactly the same position towards the
Coodleites.)
    »- Even in them I am shocked,
