Thank goodness, the _Fortnightly Review_ comes to the rescue with a gallant counter-protest, signed by the cream of British WOMANHOOD, and I feel viciously glad that I have been privileged to add my name to the long list of those who are determined to stand up for justice to their sex, whether they may happen to feel the need of it in their own individual cases or not. I am also delighted to find an influential magazine, conducted by men, which chivalrously does battle on behalf of my sex. “Good old _Fortnightly_,” I apostrophise mentally. “Long life and prosperity be thine,” and I am confidently able to predict that there will be a persistent and flourishing _Fortnightly Review_ of all things British long after the _Nineteenth Century_ has become a thing of the past. But here my attention is directed to the fact that two women, who have always womanfully championed the cause of their sex, have written replies to the anti-woman suffrage article, and that, furthermore, the editor of the _Nineteenth Century_ has inserted these replies in his review, which forthwith is absolved from a great share of the displeasure which the “atrocity” roused, not alone in my breast, but in thousands of other women—_and_ MEN. The last fact is justly emphasised in big letters, for it shows that at least some portion of the male sex recognises the enormity and injustice of saddling one-half of the human race with all the disabilities it is possible to heap upon it, except the disabilities of exemption from taxation and kindred methods of assisting in promoting the general welfare of the nation. When I mention the fact that the two replies in the _Nineteenth_ are written by Mrs. Fawcett and Mrs. Ashton Dilke respectively, I have, I think, given sufficient assurance that the replies are in themselves able ones. Into such a good humour, in fact, have I been soothed by the perusal of the counter-protests, that I find myself stringing together all sorts of fancies in which women’s achievements form conspicuous features, and I am just noticing how pleasant Mrs. Weldon looks in the Speaker’s chair, listening to Mrs. Besant’s first Prime Ministerial speech, when my senses become entirely “obfuscated,” as Sambo would say, and I sink into slumber as profound as that which overcame the fabled enchanted guardians of my favourite enchanted palace. [Illustration] CHAPTER I.