“Oh, don’t mock me, doctor. It is a hundred thousand times worse.” This concession was quite new on Mrs. Forest’s part, and the doctor did his best to comfort and reassure his wife. Dan, however, did come home the next night in much the same state, after seeming so penitent, and promising his mother that she would never see him intoxicated again. In sore distress Mrs. Forest then went to Clara. It was the first time she had crossed the threshold in seven years. Clara received her in the sweetest, most filial way; took her all over the conservatories and nurseries, and presented young Page to her. Mrs. Forest was greatly pleased with this happy, modest young fellow. She looked at his fair complexion, his light, boyish moustache just appearing, and thought of her own boy, before the wicked world had degraded and ruined him. He wore a straw hat, shading his girlish complexion, and a brown linen blouse, buttoned to the throat. Mrs. Forest stayed and took lunch with her daughter, when there appeared at the table three of Clara’s flower-girls and this young Page, now divested of his blouse, which left exposed a fine linen shirt, printed all over with dogs of every species. It was a new experience for Mrs. Forest to sit down with working-people; but then she was getting old, and had had strange havoc made lately with all her “settled” notions of things. She watched these young people narrowly; noticed how clean they were, even to their finger-nails, and that their manners at table were unexceptionable. Clara called them her children; and it was pleasant to Mrs. Forest to see the affection and harmony existing between Clara and them. During the lunch the conversation turned on the woman’s-rights convention, which was to sit at Oakdale the following week. Mrs. Kendrick had actually signed the call, and Mrs. Forest had been almost tempted to do so, but that was before the count’s name had been added, or she would not have resisted. These adolescents seemed to have very decided views on the subject of equal political rights, especially young Page. Mrs. Forest asked him where he obtained his first convictions on this mooted question. “From my mother, ma’am,” he answered, promptly. She had had at one time a very successful millinery industry in a large village near Boston, and her husband ruined it through drinking. Mrs. Forest did not see how the ballot in his mother’s hands could have prevented her husband from drinking. “I think, madam,” he replied, “that the ballot in the hands of women would shut up the rum-shops. Would you not yourself vote to have them all cleaned out of Oakdale?” This was touching Mrs. Forest in a tender place, but the young man knew nothing of her special interest in the question.