Mrs. Foster was trying to indicate to her husband that he was off the track, and that Mr. Martin did not understand him; but he had the bit in his teeth and went on. "You agree with me now, don't you? What do you think of his mentioning such things to Gertrude?" He reached over and took the letter from his daughter's hand, and read a part of the obnoxious paragraph. John Martin's face was a study. He glanced at the two ladies, and then fixed his eyes upon Gertrude's father. "Good Gad!" he said, slowly and almost below his breath. "If I were in your place I should shoot him. The infamous--" He checked himself, and the two men withdrew. Gertrude and her mother waved at them from the window, and then the girl said: "I intend to know what that bill is. What right have men to make laws that they themselves believe are too infamous for good women even to know about? Don't you believe if all laws or bills had to be openly discussed before and with women, it would be better, mamma? I do." Her mother's cheek was against the cold glass of the window. She was watching the receding forms. Presently she turned slowly to her daughter and said, in a trembling tone:-- "Such bills as this one," she drew a small printed slip from her bosom and handed it to Gertrude, "such bills as that would never be dreamed of by men if they knew they must pass the discussion of a pure girl or a mother--never! Their only chance is secret session, and the fact that even men like your--like Mr. Martin and--and--" she was going to say "your father," but the girl pressed her hand and she did not. "That even such as they--for what reason heaven only knows--think they are serving the best interests of the women they love by a silence which fosters and breeds just such measures as--" Gertrude was reading the queer, blind phraseology of the bill. Katherine had watched her daughter's face as she talked, and now the girl's lips were moving and she read audibly: "be, and is hereby enacted, that henceforth the legal age in the state of New York whereat a female may give consent to the violation of her own person shall be reduced to ten years."