e leader-women. Some of them, I am told, have
suffered loss and ill-usage; some of them have even undergone imprisonment
for the sake of what they believe and teach. Well, I will hear what they
have to say, and then they will listen to me. For until my work is done,
theirs will never be accomplished, Something tells me that with a most
certain voice."

"And until that time comes?" said Saxham.

Her eyes grew bright again, a smile played about her exquisite lips.

"Until that time comes I will study and gather more knowledge, and
capacity to fit myself for a struggle with the world."

"_You_ 'struggle with the world'!"

Her girlish pride in her high purpose being sensitive, she mistook the
brusque tenderness in Saxham's face and voice for irony.

"Yes. Perhaps you may not believe it, but I know a great many useful
things. Latin and French and German and Italian, well enough to teach and
translate. I am well grounded in History and Science and Mathematics. I
can take a temperature and make a poultice, or sweep a room and cook a
dinner." She nodded at Saxham with a little spark of laughter underlying
the sweet earnestness of her look. "Also, I have learned book-keeping and
typewriting, and shorthand. I earn enough now, by bookbinding, to pay for
my clothes. The Mother says that I am competent to earn my living
anywhere, and to teach others to earn theirs. But I am not to begin until
I am twenty-four. That is our agreement."

Saxham understood the fine maternal tact that never set this ardent young
enthusiast chafing at the tightened rein. But he said roughly:

"The Mother.... How can she approve your joining the ranks of the
Shrieking Sisterhood?"

"She knows," Lynette explained, with adorable gravity, "that I should
never shriek."

"How will you bear parting from her? And how will she endure parting from
you?"

The girl's mobile lips began to tremble. The luminous amber eyes were
dimmed with moisture as she said:

"It will not be losing me. Nor could I ever bear to leave her if I did not
know that I should come back. But I shall come back. And she will ask me
what I have done. And I shall tell her: 'This, and this, and all the rest,
my Mother, for the love of you, and for the sake of those others who once
sat in darkness and the Shadow of Death, and now have found the Way of
Peace.'"

"And those others, Beatrice?"

Saxham knew now the secret of the haunting familiarity of the beautiful
girlish face. The