“Yes,” sez he. “It is very handy for the Senators and Congressmen, and let me get you a glass.” “No, you won’t!” sez I firmly. “The nation suffers enough from that room now without havin’ Josiah Allen’s wife let in.” Sez he, “If you have any feeling of delicacy in goin’ in there, let me make some wine here. I will get a glass of water and make you some pure grape wine, or French brandy, or corn or rye whiskey. I have all the drugs right here.” And he took a little box out of his pocket. “My father is a importer of rare old wines, and I know just how it is done. I have ’em all here, Capsicum, Coculus Indicus, alum, copperas, strychnine; I will make some of the choicest, oldest, and purest imported liquors we have in the country, in five minutes if you say so.” “No!” sez I firmly, “when I want to foller Cleopatra’s fashion and commit suicide, I will hire a rattlesnake and take my pizen as she did, on the outside.” Well, I got back to Hiram Cagwin’s tired as a dog, and Serepta’s errents ondone. But my conscience opholded me and told me I had done my very best, and man or woman can do no more. Well, the next day but one wuz the big outdoor suffrage meetin’. And we sot off in good season, Hiram feelin’ well enough to be left with the hired help. Polly started before we did with some of her college mates, lookin’ pretty as a pink with a red rose pinned over a achin’ heart, so I spoze, for she loved the young man who wuz out with another girl May-flowering. Burnin’ zeal and lofty principle can’t take the place in a woman’s heart of love and domestic happiness, and men needn’t be afraid it will. There is no more danger on’t than there is of a settin’ hen wantin’ to leave her nest to be a commercial traveler. Nature has made laws for wimmen and hens that no ballot, male or female, can upset. Josiah and Lorinda and I went in the trolley in good season, so’s to git a sightly place, Lorinda protestin’ all the time aginst the indelicacy and impropriety of wimmen’s appearin’ in outdoor meetin’s, forgittin’, I spose, the dense procession of wimmen that fills the avenues every day, follerin’ Fashion and Display. As nigh as I could make out the impropriety consisted in wimmen’s follerin’ after Justice and Right. Josiah’s face looked dubersome. I guess he wuz worryin’ over his offer to represent me, and thinkin’ of Aunt Susan and the twins. But as it turned out I met Diantha while Josiah wuz in a shop buyin’ some peppermint lozengers, and she said her niece had come from the West, and they got along all right. So that lifted my burden. But I thought best not to tell Josiah, as he wuz so bound to represent me. I thought it wouldn’t do any hurt to let him think it over about the job a man took on himself when he sot out to represent a woman. They wouldn’t like it in lots of ways, as willin’ as they seem to be in print.