She did not speak at first, and there was an awkward silence for a minute. When it was broken, her voice sounded so painfully hard and calm in its effort not to tremble that I scarcely recognized it. “Within two weeks,” she said, speaking slowly, “I have sat for five hours face to face with the leading anarchists of New England. I have questioned them, and they have told me frankly of their doctrines, which you already know, and which, I scarcely need to say, I heartily detest. But I have not heard, either from the lips of these misguided men or from any one for many months, anything which has so shocked and surprised me as what I have just listened to here.” I felt that she was trembling as she spoke, but her voice was low and quiet. She continued: “When one is filled with indignation and grief it is difficult to speak justly and wisely, and therefore, if you will excuse me, I think that I will not trust myself to say anything further.” “Good heavens!” cried Mr. Mather, staring at her in undisguised amazement, while his companions glanced slyly at each other with faint smiles and an evident endeavor to make the best of an embarrassing situation. “I think, dear, you had better tell them what you are thinking of, lest they misunderstand you; of course you don’t mean that they are worse than anarchists,” said aunt Madison, gently. “No, not worse, but more to blame,” replied Miss Brewster, with extraordinary candor, and then recollecting herself, a crimson tide suddenly mantled her neck and cheek and brow, and she drew back again into the shadow. “I beg your pardon,” she stammered; and then with a little forced laugh she added, “you see, you oughtn’t to have tempted me to speak. I was sure to give offense if I spoke my thoughts.” “Ah, but we can’t excuse you unless you go on,” said Ned Conro, persuasively. “As for me, you have whetted my curiosity so that I shan’t sleep a wink to-night,” he went on, with a twinkle in his eye, “unless I know why my father’s son and heir, who has hitherto supposed himself to be always on the side of law and order, is more to blame than these foreign wretches who have come over here with the notion in their addled heads that they are going to upset this nineteenth-century civilization with a few ounces of dynamite.” Mr. Gordon echoed Mr. Conro’s request, while a quizzical smile played around his lips, and I knew as well as if he had told me, that he was saying to himself, “Gad, she’s a specimen! One of these cranky women’s-righters, no doubt. How they do like to hold forth! These girls always spoil a fellow’s fun with their high and mighty theories and ideas.” And this son of a quadruple millionaire thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his English trousers and stretched himself comfortably to listen, with all the complacent condescension of a man to whom twenty-two years of experience and masculine wisdom gave a consciousness of virtuous superiority.