'When we got to the place where we were a public laughing-stock we knew we were getting on.' The audience screamed. '_We began to feel encouraged!_' A very hurricane swept the crowd. Perhaps it was chiefly at the gleam of eye and funny little wag of the head with the big floppity hat that made the people roar with delight. 'Yes; when things got to that point even the worst old fogey in the Cabinet----' 'Name! Name!' 'No, we are merciful. We withhold the name!' She smiled significantly, while the crowd yelled. 'Even the very fogeyest of them all you'd think might have rubbed his eyes and said, "Everybody's laughing at them--why, there must be something serious at the bottom of this!" But no; the members of the present Government _never_ rub their eyes.' 'If you mean the Prime Minister----' 'Hooray for the----' Through the cheering you heard Ernestine saying, 'No, I _didn't_ mean the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, between you and me, is as good a Suffragist as any of us. Only he----well, he likes his comfort, does the Prime Minister!' When Ernestine looked like that the crowd roared with laughter. Yet it was impossible not to feel that when she herself smiled it was because she couldn't help it, and not, singularly enough, because of any dependence she placed upon the value of dimples as an asset of persuasion. What she seemed to be after was to stir these people up. It could not be denied that she knew how to do it, any more than it could be doubted that she was ignorant of how large a part in her success was played by a peculiarly amusing and provocative personality. Always she was the first to be grave again. 'Now if you noisy young men can manage to keep quiet for a minute, I'll tell you a little about our tactics,' she said obligingly. 'We know! Breakin' up meetings!' '_Rotten_ tactics!' 'That only shows you don't understand them yet. Now I'll explain to you.' A little wind had sprung up and ruffled her hair. It blew open her long plain coat. It even threatened to carry away her foolish flapping hat. She held it on at critical moments, and tilted her delicate little Greuze-like face at a bewitching angle, and all the while that she was looking so fetching, she was briskly trouncing by turns the Liberal party and the delighted crowd. The man of the long moustachios, who had been swept to the other side of the monument, returned to his old inquiry with mounting cheer-- 'Are we down'earted? _Oh_, no!' 'Pore man! 'Ave a little pity on us, miss!' There were others who edged nearer, narrowing their eyes and squaring their shoulders as much as to say, 'Now we'll just trip her up at the first opportunity.' 'That's a very black cloud, miss,' Gorringe had whispered several minutes before a big raindrop had fallen on the lady's upturned face.