Much oftener than even Mrs. Fox-Moore knew, her sister, instead of being in the houses where she was supposed to be, and doing the things she was expected to be doing, might have been seen in highly unexpected haunts prosecuting her acquaintance with cockney crowds, never learning Ernestine's fearlessness of them, and yet in some way fascinated almost as much as she was repelled. At first she would sit in a hansom at safe distance from the turmoil that was usually created by the expounders of what to the populace was a 'rum new doctrine' invented by Ernestine. Miss Levering would lean over the apron of the cab hearing only scraps, till the final, 'Now, all who are in favour of Justice, hold up their hands.' As the crowd broke and dissolved, the lady in the hansom would throw open the doors, and standing up in front of the dashboard, she would hail and carry off the arch-agitator, while the crowd surged round. Several times this programme had been carried out, when one afternoon, after seeing the girl and her big leather portfolio safe in the cab, and the cab safe out of the crowd, Vida heaved a sigh of relief. '_There!_ Now tell me, what did you do yesterday?'--meaning, How in the world did you manage without me to take care of you? 'Yesterday? We had a meeting down at the Woolwich Arsenal. And we distributed handbills for two hours. And we had a debate in the evening at the New Reform Club.' 'Oh, you didn't hold a meeting here in the afternoon?' 'Yes we did. I forgot that.' She seemed also to have forgotten that her new friend had been prevented from appearing to carry her off. Miss Levering smiled down at her. 'What a funny little person you are. Do you know who I am?' 'No.' 'It hasn't ever occurred to you to ask?' The face turned to her with a half roguish smile. 'Oh, I thought you looked all right.' 'I'm the person who had the interview with your friend, Miss Claxton.' As no recollection showed in the face, 'At Queen Anne's Gate,' she added. 'I don't think I knew about that,' said Ernestine, absently. Then alert, disdainful, 'Fancy the member for Wrotton saying---- Yes, we went to see him this morning.' 'Oh, that is very exciting! What was he like?' 'Quite a feeble sort of person, I thought.' 'Really!' laughed Miss Levering. 'He talked such nonsense to us about that old Plural Voting Bill. His idea seemed to be to get us to promise to behave nicely while the overworked House of Commons considered the iniquity of some men having more than one vote--they hadn't a minute this session to consider the much greater iniquity of no women having any vote at all! Of course he said he _had_ been a great friend to Woman Suffrage, until he got shocked with our tactics.' She smiled broadly. 'We asked him what he'd ever done to show his friendship.' 'Well?' 'He didn't seem to know the answer to that. What strikes me most about men is their being so illogical.' * * * * *