the dozen or fifteen persons who appeared in
support of the bill Selma perceived Mrs. Hallett Taylor, whom she had
not seen since her return. She was disappointed to observe that Mrs.
Taylor's clothes, though unostentatious, were in the latest fashion. She
had hoped to find her dowdy or unenlightened, and to be able to look
down on her from the heights of her own New York experience.

The lawyer in charge of the bill presented lucidly and with skill the
merits of his case, calling to the stand four prominent educators from
as many different sections of the State, and several citizens of
well-known character, among them Babcock's former pastor, Rev. Henry
Glynn. He pointed out that the school committee, as at present
constituted, was an unwieldy body of twenty-four members, that it was
regarded as the first round in the ladder of political preferment, and
that the members which composed it were elected not on the ground of
their fitness, but because they were ambitious for political
recognition.

The legislative committee listened politely but coldly to these
statements and to the testimony of the witnesses. It was evident that
they regarded the proposed reform with distrust.

"Do you mean us to understand that the public schools of this State are
not among the best, if not the best, in the world?" asked one member of
the committee, somewhat sternly.

"I recognize the merits of our school system, but I am not blind to its
faults," responded the attorney in charge of the bill. He was a man who
possessed the courage of his convictions, but he was a lawyer of tact,
and he knew that his answer went to the full limit of what he could
safely utter by way of qualification without hopelessly imperilling his
cause.

"Are not our public schools turning out yearly hundreds of boys and
girls who are a growing credit to the soundness of the institutions of
the country?" continued the same inquisitor.

Here was a proposition which opened such a vista of circuitous and
careful speech, were he to attempt to answer it and be true to
conscience without being false to patriotism, that Mr. Hunter was driven
to reply, "I am unable to deny the general accuracy of your statement."

"Then why seek to harass those who are doing such good work by
unfriendly legislation?"

The member plainly felt that he had disposed of the matter by this
triumphant interrogation, for he listened with scant attention to a
repetition of the grounds on whi