oo. And if I've got anything to say my two nephews will vote for
him; and I think I have, with my two heirs."

"Ladies, it fills my heart with joy to--"

"Votes! Why what would the powder-puffing, short-skirted, bridge-playing
women of this town do with the vote if they had it? Wear it around their
necks on a gold chain?"

"Well spoken, Mrs. Smith, if--"

"I know the direction you lean, Penfield Evans, letting--"

"But, Miss Emelene, I--"

"Letting that shameless Betty Sheridan, a girl that had as sweet and
womanly a mother as Whitewater ever boasted, lead you around by the
nose on her suffrage string. A girl with her raising and both of her
grandmothers women that lived and died genteel, to go traipsing around
in her low heels in men's offices and addressing hoi polloi from soap
boxes! Why, between her and that female chauffeur, Mrs. Herrington,
another woman whose mother was of too fine feelings even to join the
Delsarte class, the women of this town are being influenced to making
disgraceful--dis--oh, what shall I say, Alys?"

Here Mrs. Smith broke in, thumping a soft fist into a soft palm.

"It's the most pernicious movement, Mr. Evans, that has ever got hold of
this community and we need a man like my cousin George Remington to--"

"But, Mrs. Smith, that's just what I--"

"To stamp it out! Stamp it out! It's eating into the homes of
Whitewater, trying to make breadwinners out of the creatures God
intended for the bread-eaters--I mean bread-bakers."

"But, Mrs. Smith, I--"

"Woman's place has been the home since home was a cave, and it will
be the home so long as women will remember that womanliness is their
greatest asset. As poor dear Mr. Smith was so fond of saying, he--I
can't bring myself to talk of him, Mr. Evans, but--but as he used to
say, I--I--"

"Yes, yes, Mrs. Smith, I understa--"

"But as my cousin says in his article, which in my mind should be spread
broadcast, what higher mission for woman than--than--just what are his
words, Emelene?"

Miss Brand leaned forward, her gaze boring into space.

"What higher mission," she quoted, as if talking in a chapel, "for woman
than that she sit enthroned in the home, wielding her invisible but
mighty scepter from that throne, while man, kissing the hand that so
lovingly commands him, shall bear her gifts and do her bidding. That is
the strongest vote in the world. That is the universal suffrage which
chivalry grants to woman. The unpolled vote!