Rebel Women BY EVELYN SHARP NEW YORK JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMX Copyright, 1910 BY JOHN LANE COMPANY Some of these sketches have appeared in the _Manchester Guardian_, the _Daily Chronicle_, and _Votes for Women_. Contents Page I. The Women at the Gate 7 II. To Prison while the Sun Shines 20 III. Shaking Hands with the Middle Ages 27 IV. Filling the War Chest 41 V. The Conversion of Penelope's Mother 51 VI. At a Street Corner 59 VII. The Crank of all the Ages 68 VIII. Patrolling the Gutter 75 IX. The Black Spot of the Constituency 83 X. "Votes for Women--Forward!" 92 XI. The Person who cannot Escape 101 XII. The Daughter who Stays at Home 110 XIII. The Game that wasn't Cricket 118 XIV. Dissension in the Home 123 Rebel Women I The Women at the Gate "Funny, isn't it?" said the young man on the top of the omnibus. "No," said the young woman from whom he appeared to expect an answer, "I don't think it is funny." "Take care," said the young man's friend, nudging him, "perhaps she's one of them!" Everybody within hearing laughed, except the woman, who did not seem to be aware that they were talking about her. She was on her feet, steadying herself by grasping the back of the seat in front of her, and her eyes, non-committal in their lack of expression, were bent on the roaring, restless crowd that surged backwards and forwards in the Square below, where progress was gradually becoming an impossibility due to the stream of traffic struggling towards Whitehall. The thing she wanted to find was not down there, among the slipping horses, the swaying men and women, the moving lines of policemen; nor did it lurk in those denser blocks of humanity that marked a spot, here and there, where some resolute, battered woman was setting her face towards the gate of St. Stephen's; nor was the thing she sought to be found behind that locked gate of liberty where those in possession, stronger far in the convention of centuries than locks or bars could make them, stood in their well-bred security, immeasurably shocked at the scene before them and most regrettably shaken, as some of them were heard to murmur, in a lifelong devotion to the women's cause.