man in all work was quite as conspicuous as his rapacity and
tyranny in taking to himself all the wages. The Baroness, though
addressing a mixed audience, seemed to have no hesitation in speaking
of man generally as a foul worm who ought to be put down and kept
under, and merely allowed to be the father of children. But after a
minute or two Lady George found that she could not understand two words
consecutively, although she was close to the lecturer. The Baroness,
as she became heated, threw out her words quicker and more quickly,
till it became almost impossible to know in what language they were
spoken. By degrees our friend became aware that the subject of
architecture had been reached, and then she caught a word or two as the
Baroness declared that the science was "adaapted only to de aestetic and
comprehensive intelligence of de famale mind." But the audience
applauded throughout as though every word reached them; and when from
time to time the Baroness wiped her brows with a very large
handkerchief, they shook the building with their appreciation of her
energy. Then came a loud rolling sentence, with the old words as an
audible termination--"de manifest infairiority of de tyrant saix!" As
she said this she waved her handkerchief in the air and almost threw
herself over the desk. "She is very great to-night,--very great
indeed," whispered Miss Doctor Olivia Q. Fleabody to Lady George. Lady
George was afraid to ask her neighbour whether she understood one word
out of ten that were being spoken.

Great as the Baroness was, Lady George became very tired of it all. The
chair was hard and the room was full of dust, and she could not get up.
It was worse than the longest and the worst sermon she had ever heard.
It seemed to her at last that there was no reason why the Baroness
should not go on for ever. The woman liked it, and the people applauded
her. The poor victim had made up her mind that there was no hope of
cessation, and in doing so was very nearly asleep, when, on a sudden,
the Baroness had finished and had thrown herself violently back into
her chair. "Baroness, believe me," said Dr. Fleabody, stretching across
Lady George, "it is the greatest treat I ever had in my life." The
Baroness hardly condescended to answer the compliment. She was at this
moment so great a woman, at this moment so immeasurably the greatest
human being at any rate in London, that it did not become her to
acknowledge single compliments.