m."
Then her face clouded, and she went into the parlor and sat down. She
knew there was a trying conversation before her, but, "John cannot
resist the argument of my beauty," she thought, "It is sure to prevail."
In a few moments she continued her reflections. "I may be weak enough to
give a promise for the future, but I will never, never, admit I was
wrong in the past. Make your stand there, Jane Hatton, for if he ever
thinks you did wrong knowingly, you will lose all your influence over
him."

During dinner and while the butler was in the room the conversation was
kept upon general subjects, and John in this interval spoke of Akers'
wish to join the Gentlemen's Club.

"I am not astonished," answered Jane. "Mrs. Will Clough and her daughter
arrived in my Club a year ago. They are very pushing and what they call
'advanced.' They do not believe that the earth is the Lord's nor yet
that it belongs to man. They think it is woman's own heritage. And they
want the name of the Club changed. It has always been the Society Club.
Mrs. William Clough thinks a society club is shockingly behind the
times; and she proposed changing it to the Progressive Club. She said we
were all, she hoped, progressive women."

"Well, Jane, my dear, this is interesting. What next?"

"Mrs. Israel Akers said she had been told that 'very few of the
old-fashioned women were left in Hatton, that even the women in the
mills were progressing and getting nearer and nearer to the modern
ideal'; and she added in a plaintive voice, 'I'm a good bit past
seventy, and I hope some old-fashioned women will live as long as I do,
that we may be company for each other.' Mrs. Clough told her, 'she would
soon learn to love the new woman,' and she said plain out, 'Nay not I! I
can't understand her, and I doan't know what she means.' Then Mrs.
Brierly spoke of the 'old woman' as a downtrodden 'creature' not to be
put in comparison with the splendid 'new woman' who was beginning to
arrive. I'm sure, John, it puzzles me."

"I can only say, Jane, that the 'old woman' has filled her position for
millenniums with honor and affection, almost with adoration. I would not
like to say what will be the result of her taking to men's ways and
men's work."

"You know, John, you cannot judge one kind of woman from the other kind.
They are so entirely different. Women have been kept so ignorant. Now
they place culture and knowledge before everything."

"Surely not before love,