'Oh, all she's saying is a commonplace to these people. Lead-poisoning was new, to _them_--something they could take hold of.' 'Well, I stick to it, you've got a good ally in this woman. Let her stand up in Somerset Hall, and tell the people----' 'It wouldn't do,' said the young Daniel, firmly. 'You don't believe her story?' 'Oh, I don't say the things aren't true. But'--she moved uneasily--'the subject's too prickly.' 'Too prickly for you!' The girl nodded with an anxious eye on the speaker. 'We sometimes make a passing reference--just to set men thinking, and there leave it. But it always makes them furious, of course. It does no good. Either people know and just accept it, or else they won't believe, and it only gets them on the raw. I'll have to stop her if----' She leaned forward. 'It's odd your taking it like this. I suppose it's because you're so young,' said Vida, wondering. 'It must be because for you it isn't real.' 'No, it's because I see no decent woman can think much about it and keep sane. That's why I say this one won't be any good to us. She'll never be able to see anything clearly but that one thing. She'll always be forgetting the main issue.' 'What do you call the main issue?' 'Why, political power, of course.' 'Oh, wise young Daniel!' she murmured, as Miss Blunt touched the speaker's sleeve and interjected a word into the middle of a piece of depressing narrative. Mrs. Thomas stopped, faltered, and pulled herself up with, 'Well, as I say, with my own verifications these experiences form a body of testimony that should stir the conscience of the community. I _myself_ felt'--she glanced at Ernestine--'I felt it was too ghastly to publish, but it ought to be used. Those who doubted the evidence should examine it. I went to a lady who is well known to be concerned about public questions; her husband is a member of Parliament, and a person of influence. You don't know, perhaps, but she did, that there's a Parliamentary Commission going to sit here in London in a few weeks for the purpose of inquiring into certain police regulations which greatly concern women. Who do you think are invited to serve on that Commission? Men. All men. Not a woman in England is being consulted. The husband of the lady I went to see--he was one of the Commissioners. I said to her, "_You_ ought to be serving on that board." She said, "Oh, no," but that women like her could influence the men who sat on the Commission.' 'This is better!' whispered the ever-watchful Ernestine, with a smile. 'So I told her about my ten years' work. I showed her some of my records--not the worst, the average, sifted and verified. She could hardly be persuaded to glance at what I had been at so much pains to collect. You see'--she spoke as though in apology for the lady--'you see I had no official or recognized position.' 'Hear, hear,' said Ernestine.