te the purpose of the meeting.

"We are assembled here to learn for the first time how the brave women
who have done such valiant work for the cause of suffrage in this county
have succeeded in their efforts beyond their most sanguine hopes----"

"Hear! Hear! Ha! ha! Oh, haw-haw, haw!" The wall shook with the
cannonade of masculine mirth.

The Judge waited patiently. Then he rapped loudly for order, and in the
lull he went on, not hurrying:

"--and to reveal to you the plans by which this county will have the
great distinction of being the first one in this or any other Southern
state to give the ballot to our women, who have proved by nearly three
hundred years of devotion and virtue and sacrifice for us and our
children their worthiness for this trust.

"The speakers of the afternoon are Miss Selah Adams and Mrs. Susan
Walton. I have the honour to introduce Miss Adams, who will address you
upon some general aspects of the question under discussion."

"Adams! Adams! Adams!" yelled the audience.

But before the Judge could retire or Selah could rise from her chair,
one of those incidents occurred which sometimes inform a public occasion
with humour and pathos. At this moment Colonel Marshall Adams entered
the hall. He had not heard Judge Regis's "opening remarks," but he had
spent an unusually glorious Fourth. He was magnificently befuddled, and
for the first time in three months he was the regnant intoxicated ideal
of what a gentleman and a soldier should be. He was a man among men,
equal to any emergency, capable of leading a forlorn hope, or entering
the lists for a lady's hand. He had forgotten, if he had ever known, the
object of this meeting; but when he heard his name loudly called, he
understood at once; he recalled the fact that he had something eloquent
and momentous to say.

He squared his shoulders, lifted his old standard-bearing presence, and
made for the rostrum. Before any one could stop him--if any one in the
roaring throng would have done so--he stood beside the table, one hand
resting heavily upon it, the other thrust into the tightly buttoned
breast of his yellow seersucker coat.

He was received with deafening applause. He waited, as he must have
waited long ago at the charge of his regiment when it climbed the
breastworks of the enemy in the roar of a thousand guns, his head erect,
his nostrils dilated, his eyes glistening--only slightly wavering upon
his Fourth of July legs.

"Ladies a