"

"You said you were anxious to learn. At least half of that Commission
will be anxious not to learn--or not to let others."

"Then you ought to be on it."

"No woman is on it."

"You wish them to be?"

She threw out her hands. "What would be the use? Their voices would have
no weight."

"Whose would?"

"Yours," she said; and, eyeing him full, stopped dead.

"You wish me to go upon that Commission?" cried Prince Max.

"Yes."

"In spite of all my ignorance?"

"The sittings do not begin till late autumn; between now and then you
could get more actual knowledge--brought home and made visible to you, I
mean--than most of those who will form its majority."

"Then you think I could be of use?"

She looked at him, silent for a moment. "I think you have a mind capable
of taking fire, when it learns the facts."

"Facts only deaden some people," said he.

"Yes; that is what crushes us here. We have such mountains of facts to
deal with."

"And you want fire to come down from those mountains and consume me?"

She nodded prophetically.

"I know you wouldn't run away."

"I am trying to feel the call," said Max a little skeptically. And in
truth he was of divided mind, not because he had any doubt of his
ability, but because the temptation to insincerity was so strong. This
would give him the very opportunity he sought--through a vale of misery
he beheld the way to his own Promised Land; but was it fair that he
should take advantage of it without a heart of pity and conviction? This
Prince of ours rather prided himself on his conscientious scruples.

"Will you tell me from the beginning," he said at last, "what put this
thought into your mind? I seem to be getting it only by fragments."

"Three days ago," she answered, "I heard my father talking with others
of the projected Commission. They were dissatisfied at the Church not
being sufficiently represented--so insufficiently, indeed, that they
took it as an intentional slight, part of the Government's policy for
depriving the Bishops of all standing. It was held that further
representation was imperative."

"What?" exclaimed Max; "am I to represent the Bishops, then?"

She shook her head, laughing. "Oh, no!" she answered. "They found some
one very much better for themselves. That is the really immediate
danger. They are afraid that the Commission as it stands will issue
findings of a one-sided and party character, and that any minority
report, unless it