"Good!" she cried, and her dainty smile was all-embracing, as her happy eyes roved over the assembly. "Then, they're all elected, after all. It's great! Oh, I thank you! I knew our club would vindicate itself. I knew that you would live up to our motto--whatever it is. I knew that you were too big to let social prejudices stand in the way of the progress of real womanhood. I knew that we were actually a live club, come together with a genuine aim to do real good. I can see now that we are going to accomplish something worth while. We are not going to be merely a set of empty-headed, silly women with nothing to do. Oh, I tell you that I have some great plans, now that at last we are really started out right. Now, we can outline our plans of work among women less fortunate than we ourselves. We can find places for them, we can lead them on to better things, we can teach them our own doctrine of living for others, our own principle of making other people happy." The young wife had spoken with an ever increasing enthusiasm. Her eyes were sparkling; her voice deepened musically; the color glowed brightly in her cheeks; her slender form was held proudly erect in the tense eagerness of an exalted sincerity of purpose. The other women listened wonderingly at first; but, little by little, the eloquent vehemence of their president moved them to sympathetic excitement, so that they nodded and smiled assent to the speaker's lofty sentiments. Only Mrs. Flynn seemed entirely unaffected by the oratorical outburst. Now, when the speech came to a close, that militant suffragette again addressed the chair. "Madam Chairman," she said with brutal directness, "the vote stands eight to two. There are two white balls, and eight black balls." At this shocking revelation of the fact, Cicily stared dazedly for a moment; then, an expression of bleak disappointment stole over her features. She uttered a sound of dismay, which was almost a moan, and the color fled from her face. "Oh, I don't--can't believe it!" she cried, with sudden fierceness. With the words, she snatched up the box, which Mrs. Flynn had deposited on the table, and poured out the balls. She stared at them affrightedly for a moment. There could be no mistake: They were two white and eight black! Cicily regarded the incontrovertible evidence of defeat for a minute with dilated eyes. Then, abruptly, she laughed hardily, straightened up from her scrutiny of the balls, and gazed wrathfully out upon her fellow club-members. When she spoke, her tone was of ice. Her utterance was made with the utmost of deliberation. "So," she said, while her amber eyes flashed fire, "you are a set of empty-headed, silly women with nothing to do, after all!" "Cicily!" Mrs. Delancy exclaimed, aghast, while the others could only gasp in horror before this unparalleled vituperation.