out a shadow of misgiving she spoke in jest a truer word than she
dreamed. He fell in with her mood.

'Well, I rather gather that he's been criticizing the late Government,
and Liberals have made it hot for him.'

'I shall never be able to hear unless we get nearer,' said Jean,
anxiously.

'There's a very rough element in front there----'

'Oh, don't let us mind!'

'Most certainly I mind!'

'Oh, but I should be miserable if I didn't hear.'

She pleaded so bewitchingly for a front seat at the Show that
unwillingly he wormed his way on. Suddenly he stood still and stared
about.

'What's the matter?' said Lady John.

'I can't have you ladies pushed about in this crowd,' he said under his
breath. 'I must get hold of a policeman. You wait just here. I'll find
one.'

The adoring eyes of the girl watched the tall figure disappear.

'Look at her face!' Lady John, with her eyeglass up, was staring in the
opposite direction. 'She's like an inspired charwoman!'

Jean turned, and in her eagerness pressed on, Lady John following.

The agreeable presence of the young chairman was withdrawn from the
fighting-line, and the figure of the working-woman stood alone. With her
lean brown finger pointing straight at the more outrageous of the young
hooligans, and her voice raised shrill above their impertinence--

'I've got boys of me own,' she said, 'and we laugh at all sorts o'
things, but I should be ashymed, and so would they, if ever they wus to
be'yve as you're doin' to-d'y.'

When they had duly hooted that sentiment, they were quieter for a
moment.

'People 'ave been sayin' this is a Middle-Class Woman's Movement. It's
a libel. I'm a workin' woman m'self, the wife of a workin' man----'

'Pore devil!'

'Don't envy 'im, m'self!'

As one giving her credentials, she went on, 'I'm a Pore Law
Guardian----'

'Think o' that, now! Gracious me!'

A friendly person in the crowd turned upon the scoffer.

'Shut up, cawn't yer.'

'Not fur you!

Further statements on the part of the orator were drowned by--

'Go 'ome and darn your ol' man's stockin's.'

'Just clean yer _own_ doorstep.'

She glowered her contempt upon the interrupters.' It's a pore sort of
'ousekeeper that leaves 'er doorstep till Sunday afternoon. Maybe that's
when you would do your doorstep. I do mine in the mornin', before you
men are awake!' They relished that and gave her credit for a bull's eye.

'You think,' she went on quietly, seeing she