escorted by the chairman, the people on the platform
swarmed about to greet her, and hid her from Bradley's eager eyes. He
was tremulous with emotion as the chairman introduced her. It carried
him back to the day when he first saw her.

As she rose to speak now, it was in a broad, garish light. No dapple of
shadows was there, no rustle of leaves, no green, mossy trunks of
trees. She stood on a bare platform facing five thousand faces under a
shed-like roof.

She was changed too. She was now a mature woman. There was nothing
girlish about her talk or her manner. There was decision in the tones
of her voice, and a sense of power in the poise of her head and in the
lofty gesture of her hand. She no longer made a set oration. She talked
straight at her audiences.

"I wish the whole world could see this meeting," she said, "and
understand it for what it is. It is an _expression_ of a movement, not
the movement itself. It is a demand; but the revolt that lies back of
the demand is greater than the expression of it. The demand, the
expression, may change, the form of our whole movement may pass away;
but the spirit that makes it great, that carries it forward, is
invincible and imperishable. All the ages have contributed to this
movement. It is an outgrowth of the past.

"The heart and centre of this movement is a demand for justice, not for
ourselves alone, but for the toiling poor wherever found. If this
movement is higher and deeper and broader than the Grange was, it is
because its sympathies are broader. With me, it is no longer a question
of legislating for the farmer; it is a question of the abolition of
industrial slavery."

The tremendous cheer which broke forth at this point showed that the
conception of the movement had widened in the minds of the people
themselves; it was no longer a class movement. It stirred Bradley as if
some swift electric wind had blown upon him.

"Wherever a man is robbed, wherever a man toils and the fruits of his
toil are taken from him; wherever the frosty lash of winter stings or
the tear of poverty scalds, there the principle of our order reaches."

As she continued, the people turned to each other with shining faces.
She was thrilling them by her passionate, simple utterance of their
innermost thoughts.

While she spoke Bradley had eyes for nothing else; but when she sat
down amid wild applause, and the choir rose to sing, he turned to look
back over the audience, banked there