orce, accompanied her to
it.

"When your aura goes visiting in the other world," she asked, curiously,
"does it ever meet your old friend Charles Bradlaugh?"

"Oh yes," declared Mrs. Besant. "Frequently."

"Wasn't he very much surprised," demanded Miss Anthony, with growing
interest, "to discover that he was not dead?"

Mrs. Besant did not seem to know what emotion Mr. Bradlaugh had
experienced when that revelation came.

"Well," mused "Aunt Susan," "I should think he would have been
surprised. He was so certain he was going to be dead that it must have
been astounding to discover he wasn't. What was he doing in the other
world?"

Mrs. Besant heaved a deeper sigh. "I am very much discouraged over Mr.
Bradlaugh," she admitted, wanly. "He is hovering too near this world.
He cannot seem to get away from his mundane interests. He is as much
concerned with parliamentary affairs now as when he was on this plane."

"Humph!" said Miss Anthony; "that's the most sensible thing I've heard
yet about the other world. It encourages me. I've always felt sure that
if I entered the other life before women were enfranchised nothing in
the glories of heaven would interest me so much as the work for women's
freedom on earth. Now," she ended, "I shall be like Mr. Bradlaugh. I
shall hover round and continue my work here."

When Mrs. Besant had left the room Mrs. Bright felt that it was her duty
to admonish "Aunt Susan" to be more careful in what she said.

"You are making too light of her creed," she expostulated. "You do not
realize the important position Mrs. Besant holds. Why, in India, when
she walks from her home to her school all those she meets prostrate
themselves. Even the learned men prostrate themselves and put their
faces on the ground as she goes by."

"Aunt Susan's" voice, when she replied, took on the tones of one who is
sorely tried. "But why in Heaven's name does any sensible Englishwoman
want a lot of heathen to prostrate themselves as she goes up the
street?" she demanded, wearily. "It's the most foolish thing I ever
heard."

The effort to win Miss Anthony over to the theosophical doctrine was
abandoned. That night, after we had gone to our rooms, "Aunt Susan"
summed up her conclusions on the interview:

"It's a good thing for the world," she declared, "that some of us don't
know so much. And it's a better thing for this world that some of us
think a little earthly common sense is more valuable than too much