?" I asked.

"How could I tell until I hear it?"

"That is not a fair answer, Dawn."

"Well, it wasn't a fair question," she pouted.

"Very well, I will not press you more, but you'll tell me of it after,
will you not?"

"Well, what would you like me to do?" she asked.

"Oh, I'd like you to be naughty. Mr _Dora's_ complacence inspires me
to inveigle him into having to drive me home while you walk with some
one else."

"Very well, anything for fun," she responded with dancing eyes; and as
Ernest had the horse in I got into the sulky and said--

"There is room for three here, Mr Eweword, and we would be glad of you
to put the horse out when we get home."

He took the reins and a seat, and moved aside to make room for the
loitering Dawn, but she said--

"No, I'll walk; I must keep Carry company, and she doesn't want to
come just yet."

"Drive on," I commanded, and there was nothing for the entrapped
"Dora" to do but obey.

I saw Carry go on with another escort. "Will you permit me to see you
to your gate?" I heard Ernest saying as we went, and Dawn asserting
that it was unnecessary.

It was a beautiful starry night, with a prospect of a slight frost, as
we turned down the tree-lined streets of the friendly old town, whose
folk on their homeward way dawdled in knots to discuss the
interposition of the women's vote.

"Now the women will do strokes," said one.

"The men have things in such a jolly muddle it will take a long time
to improve them," another retorted.

"The women will make bloomin' fools of themselves!"

"Couldn't be worse than the men!"

"The women'll all go for this chap because he's good-looking."

"Just as good a reason as going for another because he shouted grog
for you," and similar remarks, drifted to my ears, but "Dora's" mind
did not seem to be running on politics.

"Who was that red-headed fellow sitting the other side of you?" he
inquired.

"Which one?"

"A short block of a fellow with a clean face."

"Oh, he's a man I know."

"Pretty cool of us leaving Dawn. The old dame won't like it."

"She won't mind, considering Dawn has about the most reliable escort
procurable."

"I suppose it's all right if you know him, but to me he looked like a
bagman or bike-rider or something in the spieler line."

"Oh no," and pulling my boa about me I smiled to think of the chagrin
of Dora. He was so beautifully transparent too, but to do him justice
did not seem to resent the scurv