indeed, a few committee meetings to attend; Mrs. Fane-Smith visited her district once a fortnight, and distributed tracts, and kind words, and soup tickets, and blanket tickets, besides the most lavish gifts from her own purse. Rose, to please her mother, taught a class of little girls on Sunday afternoon that is to say, she did NOT teach them, but she sat in a chair and heard them say collects, and enforced orderly behavior upon them, and read them a good little story book. But these were merely rather tiresome duties which came in very often as provoking interruptions to the great business of life, namely eating, drinking, dining out, giving dinners, or attending the endless succession of at-homes, dances, musical evenings, amateur theatricals, by which Greyshot people tried to kill time.
As to taking any intelligent interest in the political world, no one seemed to dream of such a thing, except Mr. Fane-Smith, who read the paper at breakfast, and hurled anathemas at all the statesmen whom Erica had learned to love and revere. It taxed her patience to the utmost to sit through the daily diatribe against Sir Michael Cunningham, her hero of heroes. But even the violent opposition seemed preferable to the want of interest shown by the others. Mrs. Fane-Smith had time to fritter away at least half an hour after breakfast in the most desultory conversation, the most fruitless discussions with Rose as to some detail of dress; but she always made the excuse that she "had no time" to read the papers, and amused Erica not a little by asking her husband if "anything particular had been happening lately," when they were just starting for a dinner party. Out of his little rechauffe of the week's news she probably extracted enough information to enable her to display that well-bred interest, that vague and superficial acquaintance with the subject which will pass muster in society, and which probably explains alike the very vapid talk and the wildly false accusations which form the staple of ordinary conversation.
Rose was even more perplexing. She was not only ignorant, but she boasted of her ignorance. Again and again Erica heard her deprecate the introduction of any public question.
"Oh, don't begin to talk of that!" she would exclaim. "I know nothing about it, and never mean to know anything."
Or there would be an imploring appeal.
"Why do you waste your time in talking politics when you have never told me a word about so-and-so's