191

XVI Divided Interests 207

XVII A Dumbfounded Populace 220

XVIII A Futile Search 230

XIX The Boodlers Score 240

XX An Enforced Vacation 247

XXI Word from the Missing 261

XXII A Daring Escape 273

XXIII The Hearts of the People 284

XXIV An Honest Confession 295

XXV The Old, Old Story 310

XXVI Retrospect and Prophecy 326

XXVII A Heart's Awakening 338

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

FOREWORD

"Chimerical!" the average man will exclaim when he reads the title of
this book.

"But why not?" his wife will answer.

"Worth trying," the reformers and philanthropists will add.

"One of us," the suffragette will conclude.

And there may be a grain of truth in every answer. But the idea is not
absolutely new. At this writing, there is a woman-mayor in one of the
smaller cities of the middle states in America; while over in England
there are, I believe, two women doing good work in the municipal chair.

And again, "Why not?" Housekeeping is a woman's business. It is the
primeval instinct at the bottom of every woman's heart. The average
American and English home is a clean, sweet, sanitary and well-governed
institution,--made and kept so by some woman. God made women to be
wives, mothers and home-makers; and if our modern conditions have sent
some of us out into the world to earn our own living and perhaps to
support somebody else, the instinct remains--as witness the thousands of
tiny flats or cottages where these women dwell and maintain a home, "be
it ever so humble." And so, if we are the natural housekeepers, the
conservators of health and morals and civic pride, why not a woman at
the head of municipal affairs?

The suffragette, the reformer, the philanthropist, the average wife are
right, too. As for the average man--let him read the story of Roma's
woman-mayor and think it over. And if he does not decide to vote for a
woman as mayor, pe