asis: can it be unless you and your wife stand on equal terms?"

"I never saw such a girl to ask questions," Cosden protested almost
petulantly. "You must have been going to woman's suffrage meetings all
winter."

Merry laughed outright. Her triumph was too obvious not to be enjoyed;
but she quickly checked herself.

"I have been very rude," she said contritely; "but what you said so
completely destroys the vision which every girl has in her heart that I
couldn't resist the temptation to tease you. No, Mr. Cosden; I'm not a
suffragist, and I never attended a public meeting in my life. Mother
thinks I'm too young to enter into such things; but I've read a good
deal, and I can't see why, in this scientific age, men and women
shouldn't stand side by side at the ballot-box as well as elsewhere. For
myself, I'm not quite ready for it, but I admit that it is nothing but
sentiment--a holding on to a bit of old-fashioned precedent if you
like--which holds me back. It seems to mar that vision I just spoke of,
Mr. Cosden, even as your ideas completely destroy it."

She was in earnest now, and the girlish, mischievous attitude had
completely vanished. Her grasp upon the tiller tightened, her eyes
looked far ahead and Cosden knew that in this mood she would have
welcomed a young typhoon--anything to struggle with, rather than the
smooth lapping of the water against the sides of the boat as the light
wind bore them tranquilly on toward their landing. Even to him,
unaccustomed as he was to the finer sensibilities which expressed
themselves in every feature of the girl's face, the surging thoughts
which forced so tense a silence commanded silence in his own response.
It was the closest he had ever come into a woman's inner shrine, and
instinctively he respected it.

It was her own movement--a brushing back of a strand of hair which the
breeze had loosened and blown across her face--which finally broke the
tension, but her eyes did not drop. Still looking far ahead of her she
spoke again, but the words seemed addressed more to herself than to her
companion.

"I can't bear to give that vision up," she said quietly, "and yet I
never expect to see it realized."

"Tell me what it is," Cosden urged as she paused. "Visions aren't
exactly in my line, but perhaps you can make me see this one."

"It's silly of me; you wouldn't be interested, of course."

"But I am," he insisted. "Please go on."

"Well," the girl said consciously, "s