by sheer personal interest.

Vida Levering's first experience of this 'new attitude' came one late
afternoon while on her way to leave cards on some people in Grosvenor
Road. Driving through Pimlico about half-past six, she lifted up her
eyes at the sound of many voices and beheld a mob of men and boys in the
act of pursuing a little group of women, who were fleeing up a side
street away from the river. The natural shrinking and disgust of 'the
sheltered woman' showed in the face of the occupant of the brougham as
she leaned forward and said to the coachman--

'Not this way! Don't you see there's some disturbance? Turn back.'

The man obeyed. The little crowd had halted. It looked as if the thief,
or drunken woman, or what not, had been surrounded and overwhelmed. The
end of the street abutted on Pimlico Pier. Two or three knots of people
were still standing about, talking and looking up the street at the
little crowd of shouting, gesticulating rowdies. A woman with a
perambulator, making up her mind at just the wrong moment to cross the
road, found herself almost under the feet of the Fox-Moore horses. The
coachman pulled up sharply, and before he had driven on, the lady's eyes
had fallen on an inscription in white chalk on the flagstone--

'VOTES FOR WOMEN.

'Meeting here to-night at a quarter to six.'

The occupant of the carriage turned her head sharply in the direction of
the 'disturbance,' and then--

'After all, I must go up that street. Drive fast till you get near those
people. Quick!'

'Up _there_, miss?'

'Yes, yes. Make haste!' For the crowd was moving on, and still no sign
of a policeman.

By the time the brougham caught up with them, the little huddle of folk
had nearly reached the top of the street. In the middle of the _melee_ a
familiar face. Ernestine Blunt!

'Oh, Henderson!'--Miss Levering put her head out of the window--'that
girl! the young one! She's being mobbed.'

'Yes, miss.'

'But something must be done! Hail a policeman.'

'Yes, miss.'

'Do you _see_ a policeman?'

'No, miss.'

'Well, stop a moment,' for even at this slowest gait the brougham had
passed the storm centre.

The lady hanging out of the window looked back and saw that Ernestine's
face, very pink as to cheeks, very bright as to eyes, was turned quite
unruffled on the rabble.

'Can't you see the meeting's over?' she called out. 'You boys go home
now and think about what we've told you.'

T