, aside
from an informal invitation to lunch with Mrs. Hannah Whitehall
Smith and her generous husband, both earnest friends of
temperance and important allies of the woman suffrage movement.
Mrs. Smith met the guests at the station in Philadelphia, tickets
in hand, marshaling them to their respective seats in the cars as
if born to command, and on arriving at Germantown, transferred
them to carriages in waiting, with the promptness of a railroad
official. Without noise or confusion one and all crossed the
threshold of her well-ordered mansion, and with other invited
guests were soon seated in the spacious parlor, talking in groups
here and there. "Ah!" said Mrs. Smith on entering, "this will
never do, think of all the good things that will be lost in these
side talks. My plan is to have a general conversation, a kind of
love-feast, each telling her experience. It would be pleasant to
know how each has reached the same platform, through the tangled
labyrinths of human life." Soon all was silence and one after
another related the special incidents in childhood, girlhood and
mature years that had turned her thoughts to the consideration of
woman's position. The stories were as varied as they were
pathetic and amusing, and were listened to amidst smiles and
tears with the deepest interest. And when all[89] had finished
the tender revelations of the hopes and fears, the struggles and
triumphs through which each soul had passed, these sacred
memories seemed to bind us anew together in a friendship that we
hope may never end. A sumptuous lunch followed, and amid much
gaiety and laughter the guests dispersed, giving the hospitable
host and hostess a warm farewell--a day to be remembered by all
of us.

Our Senate committee, through its chairman, Hon. Elbridge G.
Lapham, very soon reported in favor of the submission of a
sixteenth amendment. We had had a favorable minority report in the
House in 1871 and in the Senate in 1879--but this was the first
favorable majority report we had ever had in either house:

IN THE SENATE, MONDAY, June 5, 1882.

Mr. LAPHAM: I am instructed by the Select Committee on Woman
Suffrage, to whom was referred the joint resolution (S. R. No.
60) proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United
States