is kind of thing I'm
not used to, and I don't take to it over-kindly.'

'In the crush at the end,' said Miss Levering, 'I overheard a scrap of
conversation between two men. They were talking about you. "Very good
for a woman," one said.'

Miss Claxton smiled a scornful little smile.

'And the other one said, "It would have been very good for a man. And
personally," he said, "I don't know many men who could have kept that
crowd in hand for two hours." That's what two men thought of it.'

She made no answer.

'It doesn't seem to me possible that your speakers average as good as
those I heard on Sunday.'

'We have a good many who speak well, but we look upon Ernestine Blunt as
our genius.'

'Yes, she seems rather a wonderful little person, but I wrote to you
because--partly because you are older. And you gave me the impression of
being extremely level-headed.'

'Ernestine Blunt is level-headed too,' said Miss Claxton, warily.

She was looking into the lady's face, frowning a little in that way of
hers, intent, even somewhat suspicious.

'Oh, I dare say, but she's such a child!'

'We sometimes think Ernestine Blunt has the oldest head among us.'

'Really,' said Miss Levering. 'When a person is as young as that, you
don't know how much is her own and how much borrowed.'

'She doesn't need to borrow.'

'But _you_. I said to myself, "That woman, who makes other things so
clear, she can clear up one or two things for me."'

'Well, I don't know.' More wary than ever, she suspended judgment.

'I noticed none of you paid any attention when the crowd called
out--things about----'

Miss Claxton's frown deepened. It was plain she heard the echo of that
insistent, never-answered query of the crowd, 'Got your dog-whip, miss?'
She waited.

It looked as though Miss Levering lacked courage to repeat it in all its
violent bareness.

'----when they called out things--about the encounters with the police.
It's those stories, as I suppose you know, that have set so many against
the movement.'

No word out of Miss Claxton. She sat there, not leaning back, nor any
longer stiffly upright, but hunched together like a creature ready to
spring.

'I believed those stories too; but when I had watched you, and listened
to you on Sunday,' Miss Levering hastened to add, a little shamefaced at
the necessity, 'I said to myself, not' (suddenly she stopped and smiled
with disarming frankness)--'I didn't say, "That woman's too
we