cheering words of wisdom
from the leaders of the Cause, and secondly, to show the world that the
cultivated and leisure classes were for the Emancipation of Woman. It
was a democratic movement, she observed, and the toiling sisters most in
need of the vote were not with them to-night. But all effective revolts,
she asserted, started from above, among the aristocrats. They must rouse
the womanhood of the nation, the common womanhood that now slumbered in
ignorant content, to a sense of their wrongs, their slavery. She
murmured _noblesse oblige_ and sat down. Thereat a little bespectacled
lady bobbed up at her side and began reading a poem in a low, intense
voice. There were interminable verses. The well-dressed, well-dined men
and women in the audience began to show signs of restlessness and
boredom, although they kept quiet in a well-bred way. One lone man with
a lean, humorous face, who was jammed into the corner beside Milly,
looked at her with a twinkle in his eye. She could not help smiling
back, but immediately recomposed her face to seriousness.

The verses ended after a time, as all things must end, and the speeches
followed,--the first by a very earnest, dignified woman,--a noted worker
among the poor,--who argued practically that this man-governed world was
a failure, from the point of view of the majority, the unprotected
workers, and therefore women should be permitted to do what they could
to better things. There was a slight murmur of appreciation--rather for
herself than for her argument--when she sat down. She was followed by a
pompous little man, who made a legal speech with lumbering attempts at
humor. Milly was much impressed by the long list of legal disabilities
he cited which women suffered in this "man-made world," and which she
had not hitherto suspected. The man by her side was yawning, and Milly
felt like reproving him.

After the pompous judge came the star of the performance,--the pretty
little woman who was separated from her husband. She was very becomingly
dressed, much excited apparently, and swayed to and fro as she talked.
Sometimes she closed her eye in a frenetic vision of women's wrongs,
then suddenly opened them wide upon her audience with flashing
indignation, as old-fashioned actresses once did. After the dull pleas
of the preceding speakers, based on general principles and equity, this
was an impassioned invective against the animal man. One felt that hers
was a personal experien