Suffrage-work came nearer filling this void than had anything else, and that, it must be confessed, for a rather ignoble reason. It gave her a chance to make speeches. In the back of her mind, with the very real conviction that the ballot is a necessity which women are unjustly denied, lurked also the suspicion that the world is already aware of the fact without any further need of agitation. Nevertheless she continued to agitate, because she liked to exercise an ability which otherwise might have remained forever undiscovered--There is no pleasure in life equal to that of employing skillfully the talents that have been given us. She made the discovery of her gift quite by accident. At some woman's meeting, a lady who was to have spoken on the subject of the Federal Amendment failed to appear, and Joan, who had recently read up on the matter (it may be remembered that she was what the actors call "quick study"), volunteered to take her place, meaning simply to give the gist of the matter and thus relieve a harassed chairman. But when she found herself on the platform facing interested and expectant faces, something happened that had occasionally happened before when she "play-acted" for the girls at school. Joan left herself, and became a part of the audience. She listened to her voice going on and on, with amused approval. It was a voice rather like her father's, carrying and flexible, and peculiarly rich in its intonations. "It doesn't really matter much what I say," thought Joan, listening to herself; "it's how I say it. If I drop my voice a note here, they ought to frown." (They did.) "Now I'll have them smile a little, perhaps chuckle. After I stop, no applause, I think--just a nice, thoughtful silence." (All of which came faithfully to pass.) When she stepped down from that platform, her reputation as a public speaker was made. Thereafter she delivered speeches whenever and wherever she was asked, to the incredulous delight of Archie. "Say, come over and hear the wife do her little spiel to-night!" he would urge upon all his acquaintance. "It's a treat!--stands right up and hands it to 'em hot off the reel, without a note or anything. You can see her little old brain workin' while she talks--and lookin' pretty as a picture all the time!" His pride in her was such that he presented her with a successor to Lizzie, a more pretentious member of the Lizzie family, in fact, in which to get about to her numerous committee meetings. "Of course we can afford it," he said in answer to her demur. "Haven't all your friends got automobiles? Well, then!"