tle gracious gesture with her hand, he sat down on the sofa
beside her; and was there solaced by an occasional remark in an
undertone; for indeed the boy was always in a trance wherever she
was, and she had a fair amount of by-play wherewith to entertain
herself and him during the discussion.

"You are just in time, Jenny," said Rosamond; "the great question is
going to be started."

"And it is--?"

"The Equality of the Sexes," pronounced Mrs. Duncombe.

"Ex cathedra?" said Julius, as the graceful Muse seated herself in a
large red arm-chair. "This scene is not an easy one in which to
dispute it."

"You see, Bessie," said Mrs. Tallboys, "that men are so much afraid
of the discussion that they try to elude it with empty compliment
under which is couched a covert sneer."

"Perhaps," returned Julius, "we might complain that we can't open
our lips without compliments and sneers being detected when we were
innocent of both."

"Were you?" demanded Mrs. Tallboys.

"Honestly, I was looking round and thinking the specimens before us
would tell in your favour."

"What a gallant parson!" cried Miss Moy.

But a perfect clamour broke out from others.

"Julius, that's too bad! when you know--"

"Mr Charnock, you are quite mistaken. Bob is much cleverer than I,
in his own line--"

"Quite true, Rector," affirmed Herbert; "Joan has more brains than
all the rest of us--for a woman, I mean."

"For a woman!" repeated Mrs. Tallboys. "Let a human being do or be
what she will, it is disposed of in a moment by that one verdict,
'Very well for a woman!'"

"How is it with the decision of posterity?" said Jenny. "Can you
show any work of woman of equal honour and permanence with that of
men?"

"Because her training has been sedulously inferior."

"Not always," said Jenny; "not in Italy in the cinque cento, nor in
England under Elizabeth."

"Yes, and there were names--!"

"Names, yes, but that is all. The lady's name is remembered for the
curiosity of her having equalled the ordinary poet or artist of her
time, but her performances either are lost or only known to curious
scholars. They have not the quality which makes things permanent."

"What do you say to Sappho?"

"There is nothing of her but a name, and fragments that curious
scholars read."

"Worse luck to her if she invented Sapphics," added Herbert.

"One of womankind's torments for mankind, eh?" said his neighbour.

"And there are plenty more such,"