But the Literary Lady had not nearly said all she had come intending to say; so she told me as we walked to the house that she herself was engaged on a most exhaustive literary work, entitled, “The Cosmic Evidences of Woman’s Supremacy.” “Yes,” I said, in a blank tone of voice that wasn’t intended to commit me to anything. I’ve handled many similarly exhaustive MSS. in my time, and I’ve met many authoresses of the same, and my one terror was lest she should start to give me a detailed synopsis of each chapter. But fortunately we reached the house before she could get fairly launched. * * * * * After the opening hymn and prayer, the Rector briefly sketched his idea in calling the meeting together, and, after reminding us how desirable it was at a time like this that some active campaign should be set afoot to combat the drunkenness that had been such a bane to our land, he asked if any ladies who had suggestions to make would kindly speak briefly and to the point. Hardly had he sat down before the Literary Lady was on her feet urging upon us all the necessity for giving up our inebriate habits! You would have thought she was addressing loafers inside a public-house. I sat as patiently as I could waiting for her to sit down and give place to someone else, who, at least, knew whom they were addressing. But next moment I found, to my amazement, that she was lecturing us on the advantages of a fruitarian diet, assuring us that most of the evils flesh is heir to (including drunkenness) would be done away with if we only chained our appetites to fruit. She was blissfully unaware that the cause of all the trouble in our district was—cider! After every form of food that was not fruit had been abused, she passed on—by a transition that seemed easy to her, but unaccountable to everyone else—to the question of woman’s suffrage, and we learnt that another cause for drunkenness was to be found in the fact that women had had no votes. And then it dawned upon me that we had let ourselves in for an afternoon with some irresponsible crank. It really seemed as though she meant to go on for ever. The Rector’s gentle and courteous attempts to stem the rushing torrent were not of the slightest avail. He tried to interpolate a remark now and again, but she never even heard him; she was addressing us at the very top of her voice. Of course he ought to have stopped her at the very outset; but then the situation was one he had never before been called upon to face in the whole of his seventy years; hers was the first female voice to be raised in our parish in defiance of the Rector!