“And oh, Ruby, the thought of what he is makes me so ashamed of myself,” added Mildred humbly. “I have come to see how far beyond anything that I have done was his noble consecration of all his time and culture and ability to enrich the lives of those rough frontier men, while I have done nothing but sit in a velvet chair and sign cheques for money which I did not earn, and could never spend on myself.” Then, after a pause: “Well, little sister,” she continued, “you do not know, and I have no words to tell you, of my happiness. I never dreamed of what I was losing in all those years before love came. I used to feel so strong and self-contained and independent, and now, it is strange enough, but I hardly know whether I have a mind of my own or not. If I have, I cannot tell what it is until I have asked Ralph;” and she laughed a happy laugh. “Oh, Mildred, to think that I should ever live to hear you say that!” I exclaimed, laughing too. “And do you still want to vote and decline to obey? Is your haughty spirit quelled, and have”— “Yes,” said Mildred, ambiguously. “Ralph is even more of a suffragist than I, and declares that this nation has no right to call itself a republic so long as one half of the people are disfranchised. And he says the most splendid thing he ever saw a woman do was my stopping that clergyman;” and she laughed again a ringing, girlish laugh. After a while we began to talk about Mildred’s plans for the future. “I want you to know everything, dear,” she said in her frank, confiding way. “We are going away for four years, perhaps longer, for I want to study many things, and I want to see Australia before I return—that is a country with a future. “We must go now, though I leave so much which is only begun and to which I wish to give my constant personal attention. But the mental strain this year has been great. I could not live through another like it. We both want to get far away from our responsibilities and possessions for a while. I want to gain perspective, to have time for quiet thought and study. “This was my plan from the first, as you know, and now it is imperative. It is impossible for Ralph to write his book with the cares and distractions which we are constantly having.” “His book?” I asked; “I had not heard of that. Pray what is it about?” “It is to treat of the colored races in our country. He has been gathering the material for a long time, and it will be an exhaustive work,” she answered. Then she added, “I, too, have a little book planned, but of a very different sort.” “What! you, Mildred, an authoress!” I cried. “Shall you really write a book?” “Oh, that is nothing nowadays, when authors are as plenty as cooks and the world is flooded with literary rubbish,” answered Mildred rather disdainfully. “Any scribbler can write a book. It takes neither wit nor wisdom for that.”