ly because we
can't get anything better. That's part the reason w'y we're yere to-d'y.
Do you reely think,' she reasoned with them as man to man; 'do you
think, now, we tyke those low wyges because we got a likin' fur low
wyges? No. We're just like you. We want as much as ever we can get.'

''Ear! 'ear!'

'We got a gryte deal to do with our wyges, we women has. We got the
children to think about. And w'en we get our rights, a woman's flesh and
blood won't be so much cheaper than a man's that employers can get rich
on keepin' you out o' work and sweatin' us. If you men only could see
it, we got the syme cause, and if you 'elped us you'd be 'elpin'
yerselves.'

'Rot!'

'True as gospel!' some one said.

'Drivel!'

As she retired against the banner with the others, there was some
applause.

'Well, now,' said a man patronizingly, 'that wusn't so bad--fur a
woman.'

'N--naw. Not fur a woman.'

Jean had been standing on tip-toe making signals. Ah, at last Geoffrey
saw her! But why was he looking so grave?

'No policeman?' Lady John asked.

'Not on that side. They seem to have surrounded the storm centre, which
is just in front of the place you've rather unwisely chosen.' Indeed it
was possible to see, further on, half a dozen helmets among the hats.

What was happening on the plinth seemed to have a lessened interest for
Jean Dunbarton. She kept glancing sideways up under the cap brim at the
eyes of the man at her side.

Lady John on the other hand was losing nothing. 'Is _she_ one of them?
That little thing?'

'I--I suppose so,' answered Stonor, doubtfully, though the chairman,
with a cheerful air of relief, had introduced Miss Ernestine Blunt to
the accompaniment of cheers and a general moving closer to the monument.

Lady John, after studying Ernestine an instant through her glass, turned
to a dingy person next her, who was smoking a short pipe.

'Among those women up there,' said Lady John, 'can you tell me, my man,
which are the ones that a--that make the disturbances?'

The man removed his pipe and spat carefully between his feet. Then with
deliberation he said--

'The one that's doing the talking now--she's the disturbingest o' the
lot.'

'Not that nice little----'

'Don't you be took in, mum;' and he resumed the consolatory pipe.

'What is it, Geoffrey? Have I done anything?' Jean said very low.

'Why didn't you stay where I left you?' he answered, without looking at
her.

'I couldn't h