62 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. a revolution here just now," Mr. Touchett went on. " If you want to see one, you must pay us a long visit. You see, when you come to the point, it wouldn't suit them to be taken at their word." " Of whom are you speaking 1 " " Well, I mean Lord Warburton and his friends the radicals of the upper class. Of course I only know the way it strikes me. They talk about the changes, but I don't think they quite realise. You and I, you know, we know what it is to have lived under democratic institutions ; I always thought them very comfortable, but I was used to them from the first. But then, I ain't a lord ; you're a lady, my dear, but I ain't a lord. JSTow, over here, I don't think it quite comes home to them. It's a matter of every day and every hour, and I don't think many of them would lind it as pleasant as what they've got. Of course if they want to try, it's their own business; but I expect they won't try very hard." " Don't you think they are sincere 1 " Isabel asked. " Well, they are very conscientious," Mr. Touchett allowed ; " but it seems as if they took it out in theories, mostly. Their radical views are a kind of amusement ; they have got to have some amusement, and they might have coarser tastes than that. You see they are very luxurious, and these progressive ideas are about their biggest luxury. They make them feel moral, and yet they d >n't affect their position. They think a great deal of their position ; don't let one of them ever persuade you he doesn't, for if you were to proceed on that basis, you would be pulled up very short " Isabel followed her uncle's argument, which he unfolded with his mild, reflective, optimistic accent, most attentively, and though she was unacquainted with the British aristocracy, she found it in harmony with her general impressions of human nature. But she felt moved to put in a protest on Lord Warburton's behalf. " I don't believe Lord Warburton's a humbug," she said ; " I don't care what the others are. I should like to see Lord Warburton put to the test."
- ' Heaven deliver me from my friends ! " Mr. Touchett
answered. " Lord Waiburton is a very amiable young man a very fine young man. He has a hundred thousand a year. He owns fifty thousand acres of the soil of this little island. He has half-a-dozen houses to live in. He has a seat in Parliament as I have one at my own dinner-table. He has very cultivated tastes cares for literature, for art, for science, for charming
