Gallantry's suggestion," he said, "is admirable, and the sooner
it's carried out, not merely in one place, but all over England, the
better. But I rather think that, in the given circumstances, Lady Ogram
took the wisest possible step. We have to look at these questions from
the scientific point of view. Our civilisation is concerned, before all
things, with the organisation of a directing power; the supreme problem
of science, and at the same time the most urgent practical question of
the day, is how to secure initiative to those who are born for rule.
Anything which serves to impress ordinary minds with a sense of social
equilibrium to give them an object lesson in the substitution of
leadership for anarchy--must be of immense value. Here was a community
falling into wreck, cut loose from the orderly system of things, old
duties and obligations forgotten, only hungry rights insisted upon. It
was a picture in little of the multitude given over to itself. Into the
midst of this chaos, Lady Ogram brings a directing mind, a beneficent
spirit of initiative, and the means, the power, of re-establishing
order. The villagers have but to look at the old state of things and
the new to learn a lesson which the thoughtful among them will apply in
a wider sphere. They know that Lady Ogram had no selfish aim, no wish
to make profit out of their labour; that she acted purely and simply in
the interests of humble folk--and of the world at large. They see
willing industry substituted for brutal or miserable indolence; they
see a striking example of the principle of association, of
solidarity--of perfect balance between the naturally superior and the
naturally subordinate."

"Good, very good!" murmured Mr. Gallantry. "Eloquent!"

"I admit the eloquence," said Mrs. Gallantry, smiling at Lashmar with
much amiability, "but I really can't see why this lesson couldn't have
been just as well taught by the measure that I proposed."

"Let me show you why I think not," replied Dyce, who was now enjoying
the sound of his own periods, and felt himself inspired by the general
attention. "The idea of domestic service is far too familiar to these
rustics to furnish the basis of any new generalisation. They have long
ceased to regard it as an honour or an advantage for their girls to go
into the house of their social superiors; it seems to them a kind of
slavery; what they aim at is a more independent form of wage-earning,
and that's why they go of