p in
first-class fighting form. The umbrellas went down before a gleam of
returning sun. An aged woman in rusty black, who late in the proceedings
had timidly adventured a little way into the crowd, stood there lost and
wondering. She had peered about during the last part of Miss Blunt's
speech with faded incredulous eyes, listened to a sentence or two, and
then, turning with a pathetic little nervous laugh of apology, consulted
the faces of the Lords of Creation. When the speaker was warned that a
policeman had his eye on her, the little old woman's instant solicitude
showed that the dauntless Suffragist had both touched and frightened
her. She craned forward with a fluttering anxiety till she could see for
herself. Yes! A stern-looking policeman coming slow and majestic through
the crowd. Was he going to hale the girl off to Holloway? No; he came to
a standstill near some rowdy boys, and he stared straight before
him--herculean, impassive, the very image of conscious authority.
Whenever Ernestine said anything particularly dreadful, the old lady
craned her neck to see how the policeman was taking it. When Ernestine
fell to drubbing the Government, the old lady, in her agitation greatly
daring, squeezed up a little nearer as if half of a mind to try to
placate that august image of the Power that was being flouted. But it
ended only in trembling and furtive watching, till Ernestine's reckless
scorn at the idea of chivalry moved the ancient dame faintly to admonish
the girl, as a nurse might speak to a wilful child. 'Dear! _Dear!_'--and
then furtively trying to soothe the great policeman she twittered at his
elbow, 'No! No! she don't mean it!'

When Ernestine declared that women could open doors for themselves, some
one called out--

'When do you expect to be a K.C.?'

'Oh, quite soon,' she answered cheerfully, with her wind-blown hat
rakishly over one ear, while the boys jeered.

'Well,' said the policeman, 'she's pawsed 'er law examination!' As some
of the rowdiest boys, naturally surprised at this interjection, looked
round, he rubbed it in. 'Did better than the men,' he assured them.

Was it possible that this dread myrmidon of the law was vaunting the
prowess of the small rebel?

Miss Levering moved nearer. 'Is that so? Did I understand you----'

With a surly face he glanced round at her. Not for this lady's benefit
had the admission been made.

'So they say!' he observed, with an assumption of indifference