ything which
anybody except herself had written, unless it had afforded matter for
discussion, and the display of her own brilliancy. Annie's
productions were so modestly conclusive as to apparently afford no
standing ground for argument. In her heart, Margaret regarded them as
she regarded Annie's personality, with a contempt so indifferent that
it was hardly contempt.

She proceeded exactly as if Annie had not made such a fervent
disclaimer. "The Zenith Club is the one and only thing which lifts
Fairbridge, and the women of Fairbridge, above the common herd," said
she majestically.

"Don't I know it? Oh, Margaret, don't I know it," cried the other
with such feverish energy that Margaret regarded her wonderingly. For
all her exploiting of the Zenith Club of Fairbridge, she herself,
unless she were the main figure at the helm, could realise nothing in
it so exceedingly inspiring, but it was otherwise with Annie. It was
quite conceivable that had it not been for the Zenith Club, she never
would have grown to her full mental height. Annie Eustace had a mind
of the sequential order. By subtle processes, unanalysable even by
herself, even the record of Miss Bessy Dicky started this mind upon
momentous trains of thought. Unquestionably the Zenith Club acted as
a fulminate for little Annie Eustace. To others it might seem, during
some of the sessions, as a pathetic attempt of village women to raise
themselves upon tiptoes enough to peer over their centuries of weedy
feminine growth; an attempt which was as futile, and even ridiculous,
as an attempt of a cow to fly. But the Zenith Club justified its
existence nobly in the result of little Annie Eustace, if in no
other, and it, no doubt, justified itself in others. Who can say what
that weekly gathering meant to women who otherwise would not move
outside their little treadmill of household labour, what uplifting,
if seemingly futile grasps at the great outside of life? Let no one
underrate the Women's Club until the years have proven its
uselessness.

"I am so sorry about Lydia Greenway," said Annie, and this time she
did not irritate Margaret.

"It does seem as if one were simply doomed to failure every time one
really made an effort to raise standards," said Margaret.

Then it was that Annie all unconsciously sowed a seed which led to
strange, and rather terrifying results. "It would be nice," said
little Annie, "if we could get Miss Martha Wallingford to read a
selec