These were undoubtedly the same women who had passed at four o'clock on their way to the Civic League and Cemetery Association. Every man in the streets recognized them. Yet they were not the same. They did not return salutations. For the first time the men were ignored, not exactly snubbed, but literally not seen by the women in Jordantown. And each man was alone, there were not enough of them together to talk about it; they could only feel and wonder, as they stood staring in amazement at those fluttering white and black and blue and pink figures disappearing around corners and down the avenues. The sense of femininity is only a sense of weakness. And what we call masculinity is only the sense of strength, which may belong to women as well as to men under the same conditions. The men on the square had just witnessed a miracle, never seen before in this world--the rise of egotism in the feminine portion of the community, which caused every one of them to enter that zone of man on an equal footing with men in consciousness. And naturally the men did not understand that. They were so dazed that they could not even discuss it with one another. What they had experienced was too subtle to put into words. Not a man of them looked any other man in the face as they followed those women home. But every one of them was asking himself some question: "What's my wife doing out so late?" "Why didn't Selah Adams speak to me?" "What in hell's that old cat, Susan Walton, up to now, wading by me as if she owned the town?" "Oh, it's nothing! they were embarrassed at being out so late!" "But why then did they walk so infernally like Odd Fellows coming home from the lodge at midnight?" "I'll know presently!" said Magnis Carter, as he flirted around the corner into the avenue. "I'll ask Carrie!" And, as good as his word, he did. "Carrie, what's the Civic League and Cemetery Association mean by keeping such late hours?" he asked as he sat down to dinner. "There is no such organization here any more, Magnis." "Isn't? What's become of it? You women get mad and tear up your Magna Charter?" "No, we've changed it, going to get out another charter." "So, you've changed it? Going to be an Odd Fellows lodge now?" he laughed. "Something like that," she answered coolly. "Can't afford it, my dear; to be an Odd Fellow costs like thunder!" "We have plenty of funds," was the astonishing reply. "Speak as if you'd inherited the Mosely Estate." Silence on the part of Carrie, who sat at the other end of the table like a Dominique hen brooding strange eggs. "Hear anything about the will?" When there was no answer to this question, Carter looked up at his wife. "I say did you hear anything about Sarah Mosely's will?" Still no reply. "Then you did hear something? What was it?" His manner had become suddenly serious. "You'll know soon enough, Magnis." "Can't you tell me?" "No, I cannot!" "Secrets from your husband?"