STRONG-MINDED WOMAN; OK, TWO YEARS AFTER BY 'WILLIAM A. HAMMOND, AUTHOR OF "LAX," "DOCTOR GRATTAN," "MR. OLDMIXON," ETC. NEW YORK : D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET. 1385. COPYRIGHT, 1885, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. All rights reserved. fff&ff CONTENTS CHAPTER. PAGE I. RETROSPECTIONS 5 II. A FAMILY DINNER 29 III. A POLITICAL MEETING 45 IV. Miss BREMEN SPEAKS 61 V. Miss BILLY'S BOMBSHELL 80 VI. DOUBTS ARE DISSIPATED 97 VII. AN ELECTION AND ITS RESULT 122 VIII. THEODORA DECIDES 144 IX. A JOKE OR A CRIME ? 164 X. A SOCIETY QUESTION. ... 186 XI. A BEGINNING AND AN END 208 XII. INFATUATION 228 XIII. A DECLARATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 249 XIV. A DISAPPEARANCE. . 268 101769 IV CONTENTS. CHAPTER. PAG* XV. MB. SCOTT 289 XVI. REFLECTIONS 312 XVII. MACHINATIONS. . . , 330 XVIII. A TERREBLE WOMAN , 350 XIX. INVESTIGATION 372 XX. THE WILES OP THE TEMPTER 391 XXI. CONSOLATIONS 411 XXII. LOSSES 427 XXIII. DISCOVERIES 448 XXIV. A MEETING 468 XXV. " ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL " .488 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. CHAPTEE 1. RETROSPECTIONS. IT was on the first day of November, 1874, that a merry party was assembled in the drawing-room of one of the most elegant houses in Fifth Avenue, in the city of New York. The company, as regarded sex, was very unequally divided ; for while there was present only one representative of the male part of the human family, there were no less than five members of that portion which is, as science has determined, if not the more numerous, certainly the more important. The time was a few minutes before seven in the even- ing, and the occasion was the forty-second anniversary of the entrance of the master of the house, the only man present, into this " vale of tears." It was a family party, and each individual member of it was waiting, with more or less impatience, for the French butler to make his appearance at the door, and to announce with a profound bow that " Madame est servie." While they are in this state of expectancy, the oppor- tunity may be taken to bring them more prominently before the reader. First, there is Geoffrey Moultrie, whose birthday is being celebrated. Educated at the School of Mines, at 6 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. Freiberg, he had begun life as a civil and mining engi- neer. In this capacity he had done some very important work in Poland, Russia, South America, Mexico, and the United States, and had in consequence, and by judicious investments in stocks that owed all their value to his energy and skill, acquired a large fortune. His first wife was a Polish princess of a poor but ancient family, whose brother, being one of the engineer corps engaged with Moultrie under the latter's father in the construction of a railway near their castle, had intro- duced him to his family. After some objections on the part of certain of the relatives, on the ground that for a daughter of the House of Lutomski to marry an obscure American engineer would be a disgrace such as no other member of the family had ever incurred, the attachment between the young people was allowed to advance as far as the state of matrimony. This result was hastened, if not entirely brought about, by the fact that the proposed marriage met with the emphatic approval of the Czar, Alexander the Second, who had not long previously ascended the throne, and who had taken a great fancy to young Moultrie ; and that inquiry had shown that the family of the American gentleman was quite as old and as notable as that of the Lutomskis. Indeed, while the celebrity of the latter was entirely confined to their own country, and had never passed into the domain of written history, that of Moultrie not only went back to one Geoffrey de Moultrie, who came over with the Con- queror, but stood high on the roll of those that had be- come famous in his native land. Soon after his marriage Moultrie and his young bride had departed for Western Kansas, where he had large interests, and where his daughter Lalage was born. RETROSPECTIONS. 7 Here, however, the good fortune which had heretofore characterized his life was interrupted. The child, while yet an infant only a few months old, was stolen, and his wife died not long afterward, insane and of a broken heart. Then he had plunged into work, at first more as a means of diverting his mind from the gloomy thoughts with which lie was continually oppressed, but persever- ing after time had in a measure softened his grief, be- cause work had become a second nature to him. For sixteen years he had been engaged in some of the most stupendous engineering operations that the world had seen. His skill, his energy, his power of mental application, were such that people wondered where they all came from ; for he always appeared to have time not only for mere recreation, but for serious application in the domain of the fine arts. He was an accomplished musician, not only being a brilliant performer on the pianoforte, but a composer as well, and he had written a play that had met with great success in London, where alone as yet it had been produced. But a little more than two years before he is now intro- duced to the reader, he had made a visit to a Dr. Willis, then living at Chetolah, his residence, near the town of Hellbender, in the Territory of Colorado. Dr. Willis had a daughter, Theodora, whom Moultrie had met with her father at several seaside resorts during the previous summer, and for whom he had formed what the French call ' ' une grande passion. ' ' He had then proposed ; but as this action was taken after an acquaintance of only a little more than a month, the young lady, while admit- ting that she reciprocated his attachment, thought it better to wait a little while before giving him a decided answer. She was a very intellectual as well as a very 8 A STKONG-MINDED WOMAN. practical young woman ; had received a medical educa- tion, and had made many interesting expelTmeirts^ as well as original investigations, in the departments of physiology and natural history. She had no doubt of the sincerity of either Moultrie's or her own affection, but she knew how very tricky the emotions can some- times be, and she preferred, therefore, to be entirely satisfied not only in regard to the reality of the love be- tween them, but what was of equal importance, its depth and strength. Matters were therefore allowed to remain in abeyance for the time being, and Moultrie accepted the doctor's invitation to make a visit to Chetolah some time during the ensuing autumn, it being understood that if he and Theodora were of unchanged minds relative to their affection for each other, their marriage should soon take place. Accordingly, in the latter part of September, two years previously, the journey to Hellbender was made. His mother, sister a young widow, Mrs. Sincote and her daughter a child of ten Florence Sincote, being included in the invitation, and accompanying him. His own love had not flagged, and neither, as the event proved, had Theodora's ; for on the morning after his arrival at Chetolah he had again pressed his suit, and had met with a gracious acceptance. Shortly afterward they were married. But Moul trie's visit to Colorado had not only resulted in his obtaining a charming woman for his wife. Infor- mation had been received by the doctor that confirmed sus- picions that had been formed several years previously, but that could not at the time be established, that a notorious horse-thief and murderer named Bosler had been the abductor of Moultrie' s child, and that she was then RETROSPECTIONS. 9 living with Bosler as his daughter. Measures, among which was the hanging of Bosler by a vigilance commit- tee, were at once taken to obtain possession of the girl, who was then a little over seventeen years of age, and success had crowned the efforts. She was one of those present in the drawing-room awaiting the announcement of dinner. Second, there was his wife, late Theodora Willis, the only daughter of Dr. Willis, a wealthy Virginian, at one time a medical officer of the army, but more recently a citizen of Colorado. He had gone to that Territory soon after the discovery of gold and silver, for the pur- pose of restoring the health of his wife. He had made large and fortunate investments in mines and lands, and was the originator and chief proprietor of the town of Hellbender so named from a curious reptile found in a mountain lake near by his residence, Chetolah, being situated close to the place. Theodora Willis had been brought up in a rather peculiar manner. Her mother had died not long after her arrival in Colorado, and the education of the young girl had devolved entirely on her father. His mind, in consequence of his anxiety in regard to his wife's health and grief at her death, had become slightly unhinged, but only in one direction. QejJn4ax.,J)ecam^ maniac_pn the subject of his daughter's intellectual abili- ties, and in regard to the status that women should occupy in social and political affairs. He was constantly urging her for official positions of various kinds, con- sulted her in his difficult medical cases, and left no occa- sion unimproved for descanting on her pre-eminence not only over all other women, but over men as well in all those qualities that are supposed to indicate special 10 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. fitness for great state and municipal offices. As to women as a sex, he thought they ought to take the place of men in the affairs of nations, and that they were far superior to men in mental development. His derange- ment was well known to his daughter, who by no means contributed her influence to the maintenance of his dis- ordered ideas, and was eventually recognized by himself, his monomania suddenly disappearing from the effects of a very positive address, made by one of his friends, a Mr. Tyscovus, at a political meeting in opposition to some exceedingly extravagant views he had enunciated. Theodora, however, while not courting political ad- vancement for her sex, was a strenuous advocate for greatly enlarged courses of study for women and their elevation to an intellectual stage above that which they then occupied. Under the tuition of her father and a Fraulein Schwartzfeld, who had taken a medical degree at Zurich, she became a proficient in comparative anato- my, and, as the former had said in a conversation with his friend Tyscovus, had " dissected every kind of an animal from man to insects." She had also held ad- vanced views relative to the development hypothesis, and had conducted a series of investigations in evolution that had led to the most astonishing results. A very com- plete laboratory had been erected as a wing to Chetolah, and here she was accustomed to spend the greater part of her time in physiological, physical, and chemical researches. But notwithstanding this decided intellectual bias, Theodora Willis was deficient in none of the mental characteristics of a true woman. The emotional part of her mental being was well developed, and while hers was not one of those warm-hearted natures that become RETROSPECTIONS. 11 demonstrative in the presence of circumstances calculated to arouse the passions, she experienced probably fully as much feeling in her own quiet way as those who evinced more obvious disturbance. She had married Moultrie not only because she loved him devotedly, but because she perceived that he was a man that she could not fail to respect. Probably neither of these factors would have sufficed to make her become his wife, and it could not fairly be said that she had been influenced in her judgment of his character by the fact that she found herself giving him her love. She had weighed him in her intellectual balance without prejudice for or against him, and had deliberately arrived at the conviction that she would be able to add to his happiness, and he to hers. Her manner was peculiarly winning, gracious, and frank. She had always contended that a woman could, when actuated by high and ennobling motives, attend the dissecting room and study human anatomy without losing any of the freshness or bloom of her womanly nature ; and certainly the result in her own case appeared to give countenance to that opinion. In person Theodora Moultrie, as she was now, was tall and slender, without her figure being in the slightest de- gree emaciated. Her hair was of the golden auburn hue that a chestnut sometimes exhibits when the burr has been open toward the autumn sun. Her eyes were gray ; not a shade of green or of blue, or of any intermediate hue, but a good, honest gray, like that of the back of the gray squirrel, with little irregular spots of darker gray scattered over the irides. Her forehead was rather low, and her eyebrows somewhat darker in color than her hair were well arched, though not to such an extent 12 A STKONG-MLNDED WOMAN. as to create the expression of astonishment which persons with very high-arched eyebrows always exhibit. Her mouth was her most expressive feature, even when in repose. There was nothing severe in its outlines, but the lips, without being tightly pressed together or left half open, were kept, just sufficiently in contact to remove all idea of weakness from the mind of the ob- server, and at the same time prevent the conception that she was a hard and unemotional woman. And it was a mobile mouth. When she laughed or smiled, it opened wide enough to display two rows of white and regular teeth, upon which there was not a spot or blemish, and then two tiny dimples appeared at the corners, only for an instant, as though just for the purpose of emphasiz- ing the expression. Her complexion, while not what is called " blooming," had a light shade of pink on the cheeks, not sharply defined at the outlines, but fading gradually away till it was imperceptibly lost in the white with the tinge of old ivory that was the prevailing hue of the rest of her face. Certainly she was very beauti- ful, and evidently she knew how to enhance her good looks by the use of those legitimate means the knowledge of which appears to be innate with most women. Then her hair was worn in the simplest manner, merely being twisted into a knot behind, while a few reddish-brown curls lay negligently on her forehead. In this way the classical head was best shown in all its beauty. What matters it how perfect the shape of a woman's head may be if she loads it down with masses of false hair, arranged without the slightest regard for the canons of art ? Doubtless some heads are improved in ap- pearance by such a procedure, but Theodora Moultrie's was not one of them. The more of it that was seen RETROSPECTIONS. 13 as nature made it, the more it was certain to be ad- mired. When she spoke other charms were revealed, and not her least by any means. Not only did she speak the English language perfectly, but she knew just how to accentuate her words and to intone her phrases to suit the ideas she was expressing. And then her voice ! It was one such as probably few women in New York not of Southern or late English origin possess. Not that the New York women have not the vocal apparatus as per- fectly formed as that of their Southern sisters, but for the reason that they are rarely taught how to use it for conversational purposes. They talk, but as a rule they do not converse. There was no physical weakness about Theodora. She could eat a good big piece of beefsteak for her breakfast, with the accessories of bread and butter and a cup of well-made coffee, besides doing full justice to her other meals ; and then she walked four miles every day. Rain or shine, snow or sleet, hot or cold, no matter what the weather, she walked four miles. It took her two hours nearly to do this, and then the rest of the morning was spent in such occupations as were not obligatory, but that assuredly materially contributed to her well-being and happiness. There was no laboratory in the house in Fifth Avenue. She had voluntarily given up all those practical studies that necessitated a workshop of the kind. But she read and wrote in a lovely little boudoir adjoining the library, in which there was a microscope for such occasional use as might be suggested by topics of reading or conversation, and that besides was well stored with such of her own individual books as were her special friends or favorites. 14 A STKONG-MINDED WOMAN. Theodora was fond of fine clothes in the proper sense of the expression. Her taste was so correct that nothing could have induced her to wear bad materials unartistic- ally made, or into the construction of which incongruous colors entered. For mere ornaments, as such, she cared little, rarely wearing jewelry of any description ; and when she did array herself in anything of the kind, they consisted of a necklace, a brooch, or a bracelet, either veritable antiques, or fashioned after some ancient models, the beauty and value of which depended not so much on the material of which they were made as on the perfection of the workmanship of which they had been the recipients. Beyond some old heirlooms Theodora did not probably own a diamond, or a ruby, or other precious stone, but she possessed a gold Etruscan neck- lace which had once been worn by Julia, the daughter of Julius Caesar and Cornelia, and another of intaglio gems two thousand years old, and which no lapidary of the present day could hope to rival in perfection of design and execution. She was rich, her husband was rich, her father was rich ; but the wearing of any article of ap- parel or of ornament merely because it would display her wealth would have been an abomination to her. Third, Miss Lalage Moultrie. This young lady was, at the time this history begins, in her nineteenth year. Her life had been a checkered one, but through her good sense and strength of character she had succeeded in escaping the pitfalls with which her pathway in life had abounded. While only a few months old she had been stolen by one Jim Bosler, who had been described subse- quently as the " worst man between the two oceans." In a fit of drunken rage he had killed his own infant of the same age and of like features. Fearful that exposure RETROSPECTIONS. 15 would come oji the return of his wife, who was tempo- rarily absent, as well as other inconveniences being caused, he had proceeded to Moultrie's house near by and had abducted the child. He then took it to his own home, and had succeeded, without suspicion for several years, and without detection for many more, not only in passing her off upon the public as his own daughter, but even in deceiving his wife to the same effect. The child's own mother had died shortly after the kidnapping, and her ostensible mother was a poor, weak creature, wholly under the control of her husband, but who, although brought down by her marriage almost to his low level, had never been wholly bad. Occasionally, and especially during the latter years of her life, a dis- position to get her husband away from his associations, with the hope of reforming him and of improving the social conditions of herself and the child, was manifested ; but it never came to anything definite. She died sud- denly from pulmonary hemorrhage during a violent alter- cation with her husband. This man w r as a professional horse-thief and gambler. During his residence in Colorado, whither he had gone about the time the Willises had settled there, he was known to have killed eleven men. Finally he was tried and hanged by the Vigilance Committee ; but before his execution confirmed very positive information that had only been received a few days previously, that Lai Mrs. Bosler had given her the name of Lalla was not his daughter. Irrefragable evidence showed that she was Moultrie's long-lost child. Bosler had formed plans for marrying her to one of his own companions, a man almost as bad as himself, but 16 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. these were defeated by Lai's escape and by the timely action of the Vigilance Committee. x~ A short time before this catastrophe a young Polish / nobleman, Tyscovus by name, had arrived at Jim Bosler's \ cabin, which was situated a few miles from Hellbender, / on a high knoll or butte. He had been apparently J directed to this exact spot in a dream or a vision, and / though not in the least superstitiousTTTe hadTacted in accordance with the directions given him, and had found V the place exactly as it had been described. He was engaged in the preparation of an elaborate work on sociology, and desired to reside where he could be removed from all disturbing influences. He had ac- cordingly bought the place and had made it his resi- dence. Seeing Lai, he had been struck with her beauty, and an incident that took place had shown him how true she was of heart, and how great was her capacity for mental and moral development. He loved her before he knew that she was anything else than the daughter of a horse-thief and a murderer ; and of course the discovery that her mother was a Polish princess, and her father one of the most eminent of American citizens, had not tended to diminish his affection. But although Moultrie was glad to find that an attach- ment existed between his daughter Lalage or Lai, as she continued to be called by her friends, with equal appropriateness as when it was thought her name was Lalla and a gentleman so admirable in every respect as was Tyscovus, he deemed it advisable that marriage should be deferred for at least two years. This conclu- sion had been arrived at not only on account of her youth which, perhaps, had that been the only obstacle, might have been overlooked but for the reason that her edu- EETEOSPECTIOWS. 17 cation had been almost entirely neglected, and that she had never had those associations with ladies and gentle- men of her own station in life so necessary to give polish and refinement of manner, and to otherwise fit her for the duties and the amenities of the marriage state. Lai was endowed with an ample quantity of good sense, and she had at once recognized the force of the arguments that her father had addressed to her. Indeed, when Tyscovus informed her of his love and his desire to make her his wife at the earliest possible moment, she had, while expressing her own affection, declared with equal positiveness that she was not fit to be his wife. She saw with a woman's discernment that while he was an educated gentleman, with manners and forms of speech befitting his social position, she was uneducated, ignorant of those conventionalities of life without which society would be unendurable, and speaking a debased dialect, every word of which showed her unacquaintance with the first principles of polite conversation. She was of keen sensibilities as well as of quick intelligence, and she would have been intensely mortified if at any time the man that she loved and had married should have had occasion to be ashamed of his wife. Accordingly she had come East with her father, leav- ing her lover in possession of his butte, and on which he intended to erect a large and substantial house in time to receive his wife when the two years of probation had expired. It was agreed that in the meantime they might correspond, and that Tyscovus should visit his fiancee twice a year for periods of two weeks. Owing, how- ever, to circumstances beyond his control, the two years had nearly elapsed without his having been able to make a single visit. 18 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. Lai had had, in consequence of the low moral tone of her former associations, while she thought she was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bosler, rather loose ideas in regard to the rights of property-holders, and these were especially manifested in the direction of horse-flesh. She had so often heard her reputed father, Mr. Jim Bosler, assert that " hosses was things as no man had ary a right to call his'n onless he knowed enough to keep 'em," that she accepted the diction as sound ethical doctrine, and was at all times ready to defend it vi et armisy if necessary. But as she grew older an occasional doubt the first promptings~oF^rnbeWeFnature- arose ifTher mind relative to the rectitude of her ostensible father'sconduct. Apparently these did not come from teachings, or__examples, or from any oth^r ^Ytranpons causejs._^rhere^ was no source open to herjfrom which tEey^could have beenderived. The man that she had been taught to regard as her father was a notorious horse-thief and murderer, who justified his stealings by contending that he had an inherent right to take horses and mules whenever and wherever he could find them, and his murders by the plea that any one that endeav- ored to prevent him gratuitously risked his life, and must take the consequences of his folly. The woman that she looked upon as her mother had been a respect- able girl, but after her marriage with Jim Bosler she had assimilated herself to her husband, losing the conscien- tiousness she had once had, and justifying him in all his crimes against society. It was not, therefore, a matter for surprise that Lai should have arrived at womanhood with many notions that were altogether incompatible with the principles of sound morality. The wonder was that, notwithstanding the vicious influences to which she RETROSPECTIONS. 19 was constantly subjected, she had preserved an essentially pure nature that not even bad precept and worse exam- ple cotfjd destroy. The germ of goodness was in her heaii^Sibrironiy^equired the proper germinating forces to be brought to bear upon it, in order to cause it to break through the thin coating that concealed it from view. The occasion was not wanting. She had found a little book that Tyscovus had lost, and instead of returning it to the owner, had appropri- ated it to her own use. The book was a biography of one of his ancestors, and in reading it she came across many examples of virtue and self-sacrifice that seemed to be just such as she needed to have set before her at this stage of her existence. She perceived how lament- ably she fell short of the standards of excellence that the perusal of this little book brought to her knowledge, and, filled with remorse, she determined to return the volume, confess her crime, and take the consequences that she might have incurred. But instead of upbraiding her for her offence, Tysco- vus had sympathized with her in her repentance, and had made her a present of the book. Overcome by the kindness and graciousness of his treatment, her whole heart had gone out to him, and she had fallen at his feet acknowledging his goodness and praying for his welfare. Then it was that, as he raised her from the floor, their eyes met, and the story of their love began to be told. No one ever labored more assiduously in the direction of self-improvement than had Lalage Moultrie since her arrival in New York, nearly two years before. Of course she had all the facilities at her command that her father's love and wealth could afford, but she had incen- tives to work without which her progress would have been 20 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. comparatively slow. Her love for Tyscovus had suffered no diminution. On the contrary, time and absence seemed to have added to its intensity, and she had made good use of all the advantages she possessed in order to fit herself to be his wife not only in name, but in all that is implied by companionship and friendship. In all this she had succeeded, if not in accordance with her own expectations, certainly to a greater extent than the most sanguine of her friends had supposed would be possible. In the first place, she had a very clear idea of her own deficiencies, and, in the next, she was not spoiled by her elevation in social rank. She knew, for instance, that her manner of speech was not such as edu- cated and refined persons employed, and she therefore set herself to work to get rid of a characteristic that more than any other feature was calculated to shock those with whom she would soon be brought into relation. It was a difficult undertaking for one who had for so many years been absolutely cut off from association with per- sons who spoke the English language grammatically, and for one who had, in consequence, acquired an uncouth dialect, nearly every word of which was a barbarism or solecism, or both. But she had persevered, and, assisted by her father, who took this particular part of her educa- tion under his especial supervision, she had attained to a degree of proficiency in the correct use of her native tongue that not one young woman in a thousand of those to " the manner born" ever succeed in reaching. Moultrie prided himself on his use of good English. Theodora spoke always with a purity of diction that showed that she had been in association all her life with educated ladies and gentlemen. A muddy sentence was never heard from either of them. Example, there- RETROSPECTIONS. 21 fore, more influential, as it always is, than precept, gave its powerful aid to accomplish the object in view, and so it resulted that, in the course of less than two years, Lai's speech was such that no one hearing her talk would have supposed that she had ever had any other compan- ionship than that of men and women of good grammati- cal repute. But Lai's English, though grammatical, was not always colloquial. It was as yet too precise and formal for ordinary conversation. Thus she very generally said " cannot" for " can't," " do not" for " don't,' 5 " I am" for " I'm," " I have" for " I've," and so on. It was scarcely a fault, and, indeed, often gave an added charm to her speech, which went well with her earnest- ness and evident sincerity. Again, at times, when intensely interested or excited, she fell unconsciously into her old dialect. It appeared, therefore, that she had not yet learned her new language so thoroughly as to use it automatically. She had to give her mind to it, just as does a musician to a composi- tion that he has not thoroughly learned. It does not take long for an American girl, with suffi- cient opportunity, to learn good manners. Six months in a boarding-school under the charge of a lady of gentle breeding will change a backwoods amazon to a duchess of the ancien regime, so far as mere externals go, though she may at heart be as uncouth as a Pawnee squaw. Lalage Moultrie had the great advantage of being in- nately refined. Her father was a gentleman, as were mT fatKeTanbTllis father's father, and so on back for many generations. Her mother was a princess of the House of Lutomski, one of the oldest in Poland. It would have been strange, therefore, if such good blood as 22 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. flowed in her veins had not brought with it something more than the material elements of the sanguine cur- rent certain predispositions and tendencies that could not have been wholly restrained, no matter how adverse were the influences to which they might be subjected, and which required very little developing power to bring them to fruition. These she had, and hence the sweet- ness and gentleness that characterized her speech and factions were not a mere superficial coating, but an ex- jpression of her power of thought and feeling. ' And yet Lalage had a spirit of her own that, when roused into activity by what she considered indignity or oppression, made itself felt in the most unmistakable manner. Indeed, before her rescue from the man who had stolen her, and who had assimilated her so far as he could to his own degraded and vicious nature, she had at times displayed a violence of anger, conjoined with a physical capacity to take care of herself when occasion required, that argued strongly for her mental and bodily powers of resistance or attack, and her disposition to use them without much regard for the consequences to her antagonist. But as she came more and more thoroughly under the civilizing influences to which she had been for now nearly two years subjected, she saw the necessity of self- control in this respect. For Lalage to be aware of a fault was all that was sufficient to excite her to make strenuous exertions to get rid of it. But it was in this direction that she encountered the most difficulty, and at times, notwithstanding all her efforts, she would give way to her temper to a degree out of proportion to the exciting cause. Still, it was so manifestly honest, and she was so sincere in her repentance for any unreasonable EETKOSPECTIONS. 23 outburst of indignation, that those who experienced its effects were not loath to accord their forgiveness. It was when she was conscious of having committed a fault that her inborn honesty and sense of justice came out strong- est, andTtHen nothing w^uloTsatisfy-he^tttl full repara- tion had been made. In personal appearance, save in the matter of height, Lalage Moultrie was very different from Theodora. Like her, she was tall, but she was more robust and powerful, and of greater powers of endurance. While Theodora would walk her four miles a day and feel that it was as much as was good for her, Lalage would think nothing of three times the distance, and be as fresh when it was finished as she was when she began. Her step was as elastic and free as that of a young blacktail deer. In fact, every movement had the grace and accentuation which only well-developed muscles can give. Up to the time of her recovery by her father she had been used to the very roughest sort of work with feet and hands. It was nothing then for her to run bare- footed up and down the stony road that led from the cabin on the butte to the plain below, and to pass the greater part of the time shoeless and stockingless. In- deed, except in winter and upon grand occasions, bare- footedness was her normal condition. And a like state of affairs existed in regard to her hands. She did the most of the cooking, washing, and ironing of the family of three. It was not much collectively, but it was enough to spoil for the time being what would otherwise have been among her most charming features ; and the fact that she chopped the greater part of the wood used as fuel, and often looked after the horses, feeding them and hitching them up when necessary, made matters still 24 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. worse, so far as softness and whiteness were concerned. But her hands and feet were so beautifully formed that no native-born Polish princess, unless she had American blood in her veins, ever possessed prettier ones, and it did not take long for all signs of hard usage to disappear. Lai's hair was as black as the plumage of a crow, but, unlike most black hair, it was as fine and soft as silk. It was a most luxuriant growth, reaching, when she let it down, far below her waist, and enveloping her head and bust in its raven-hued strands. Like Theodora, she wore it very simply. In some things art improves upon nature, but Lai's hair was not one of them. It goes almost without saying that her eyes were as black as her hair. So they were ; large, soft, lustrous eyes, that could be laughing, or loving, or pitying, or fierce, or sad, in accordance with the emotion that swayed her, and that never sent out a glance that was not honest and true. Of course, too, they were sur- mounted by black eyebrows and fringed by black eye- lashes long, silken lashes that " kissed her soft cheek's blooming tinge" as it cropped out of the clear olive tint of her complexion. Her mouth was of fuller contour than was Theodora's ; not so delicately chiselled, perhaps, nor so intellectual in its expression, but certainly more emotional. Lai laughed a good deal in those days, and when she did she showed teeth that a Congo queen might have envied. It had not taken her long to learn the art of dress. But few young women, lifted up, as she had been, out of the depths of squalor to a state of affluence, would have shown a tenth part of the moderation in the matter of external adornment that was exhibited by Lalage Moul- trie. There was no disposition to run riot with the hues : RETROSPECTIONS. 25 of the rainbow or the products of the silk looms ; all was subdued and quiet. Her beauty was of the kind that took care of itself. To-night she wore a black silk frock trimmed sparsely with bands and bows of crimson ribbon. Around her neck was a curious Circassian necklace that she had worn when she was stolen, and that had been recovered at about the same time that she was identified as Moultrie's daughter. To it hung, as a pendant, a locket that Tyscovus had sent her, and which was made of gold that he himself had worked out of the deposits of Wild-cat Creek. This and a Jacqueminot rose in the bosom of her gown were all the ornaments she wore. The dowager Mrs. Moultrie must have been fully sixty- two years of age, but time had dealt gently with her, both in regard to her mind and body ; for she looked and felt younger than she really was. She was a well-disposed woman, but at the same time, like some others of her sex, undulKinclined to meddle with things that did not especially (WcernSier, and to carry her point either by continually^4mr^ng on the matter at issue, thus wearying her opponents, or by means not strictly legitimate. She had very decided opinions of her own on most of the topics that engaged the attention of mankind the world over. In fact, it was a matter of pride with her never to confess her ignorance of any subject. As a necessary consequence, many of the views she held and expressed were formed from little or no knowledge, but jumped at as a cat would jump at a mouse, hit or miss. She never lost her temper, strange to say, or manifested elation, whether she suffered defeat or gained a victory, but preserved the most aggravating mental composure and suavity of manner, which it must sometimes have cost her a sickening pang to manifest. 26 A STKONG -MINDED WOMAN. She was not dependent on her son for support. She had her own establishment near the Central Park, be- sides a magnificent country-seat on the North River, and lived in a style befitting her wealth, which, if not very great as wealth goes nowadays, was more than sufficient to allow of luxurious living. Her daughter, Mrs. Sincote, a little over on the shady side of thirty, had been a widow for ten years. She had married a lieutenant in the army soon after his graduation at "West Point, one who, like most of his species, had nothing besides his pay to live on. The war between the States was then in full blast, and Lieutenant Sincote, like other graduates at the time, was denied the usual leave of absence, and was ordered to join his regiment, then fighting in the Wilderness under Gen- eral Grant. She never saw him again alive, for he fell with a bullet through his heart in one of the numerous battles of that campaign, and he never saw his daughter, who was born after his death. Mrs. Sincote was a pretty looking woman, who dressed well on the liberal allowance her brother gave her, but who, besides being amiable and well disposed, was rather negative in hermental charactgrjsjjcs. In any argument going on before her she always expressed an opinion in accordance with the views of the last speaker. She could not, therefore, see more than one side of a ques- tion at the same time, and it was accordingly no unusual thing for her to express as many views on a topic of conversation as there were persons engaged in the dis- cussion. She, with her daughter Florence, resided with her mother, and but for the general weak tone of her character the association would not have been a pleasant one for her. As it was, she got along very well with RETROSPECTIONS. 27 the dowager, for the reason that she never did or said anything that in the least savored of opposition to any- thing said or done by the old lady. At times, however, there was trouble, just as there was between the wolf and the lamb, and mainly on account of the fact that Mrs. Moultrie had her own ideas of the character of the education to be given to Florence. Now, although Mrs. Sincote never interposed the shade of an objection to the very preposterous notions of her mother, her very passivity led the latter to seek her opponents elsewhere. Teachers and Moultrie himself were made parties to the one-sided contest, and then Julia Mrs. Sincote' s first name was reproached, till she was thrown into a semi- hysterical condition, with her want of interest in her child's education. However, such occasions were rare, and on the whole, as we have said, the mother and daughter got along very well together. Julia Sincote had been one of the party that visited the Willises with Moultrie when he got his wife and found his daughter. Although she had been thrown very little into the society of Count John Tyscovus, or plain Mr. John Tyscovus, as he preferred to be called everybody in Poland, as he said, owning a ten-acre lot being a count she had fallen very much in love with him. All women liked Tyscovus ; his way with them nattered them, while it had not the appearance of being flattery. And a man with that way, if personally unob- jectionable, takes their hearts by storm. Of course she said nothing about the passion that had arisen in her heart, but it was none the weaker for that ; and the fact that her niece was betrothed to him, although it proba- bly forced her to see the hopelessness of the emotion she had conceived, did not tend to lessen its force. She was 28 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. not a woman of strong feeling, but she was very tena- cious of her senlTmejits, weak though they were, and while she would certainly not have sacrificed herself for the man she loved, she probably, if success had appeared to her to be a probable result, would not have hesitated to sacrifice any one else. So far as her love for Tysco- vus was concerned, she had long since made up her mind that it would never come to anything ; but she rather enjoyed the idea of nursing a hopeless passion, and of meditating over her forlorn state as a life-long martyr. Notwithstanding the state of depression in which she considered herself to be, she was on excellent terms with Lalage, though she never trusted herself to talk of Tys- covus with her, or even to mention his name in her pres- ence. Of her brother Geoffrey she stood in wholesome awe, not only because she was dependent on him for her ability to dress as she pleased, to go everywhere, and to entertain handsomely, but because she very well knew that he would tolerate nothing that savored of disloyalty either to himself or his daughter. And, last of all, there was Florence Sincote, a child of eleven, whose importance in the world was yet to come, and who had not yet lived long enough to accumulate the materials of a history. She was bright and vivacious, rather pretty, and probably resembling in face and mind her father more than her mother. She was present on sufferance, and for this occasion only, by reason of the fact of its being her uncle's birthday. With these formal introductions and brief account of the antecedents of some of the chief personages of this history, the groundwork for the detail of their subse- quent actions is sufficiently laid. CHAPTER II. A FAMILY DINNER. THE large and elaborate Dutch clock, which not only struck the hours and half hours, but chimed a dozen tunes and told the day of the week and of the month, the phases of the moon, the height of the sun, besides giving other valuable information, and which stood on the first landing of the staircase, had just finished a per- formance on its bells that was intended for an eigh- teenth-century pastoral. The first stroke of seven had just sounded when Francois, the butler, was seen stand- ing in the doorway that opened into the wide hall. At the second strike he bowed to Theodora, and at the same instant the words " Madame, est servie" flowed mellifluously from his lips, and ere the reverberations of the third stroke had ceased the important announcement had been made, and the prandial herald had disappeared. Moultrie gave his arm to his mother, and the procession, of which Theodora and Lalage brought up the rear, took up its line of march to the dining-room. It was a large and handsome apartment, capable of dining forty people comfortably. The prevailing tone of the walls, which was a dull red, was given by old Cordova leather which Moultrie had picked up in Spain. On the marquetry floor was a thick Indian rug, which covered it up to about four feet from the walls all around, leaving bare that extent of the elaborate inlaid 30 A STEONG-MINDED WOMAN. work. The ceiling was of a pale blue tint, the centre being specked with stars, butterflies, arid birds in gold, but all flat. Moultrie was too correct in his artistic taste to permit any decoration in relief, or with the appearance of relief, to go on the ceiling or even the walls of his house. Such abominations as vases of flowers, cupids, and garlands sticking, in violation of the laws of nature, to a flat, horizontal surface, would not have been toler- ated in his establishment, or in one over which Theodora presided. From the centre of the ceiling hung a brass Moresque chandelier, which was a chandelier in reality, as it held fifty wax candles, and from the four corners depended four lamps of the same metal and of most intricate Arabic workmanship. Moorish and Arabic cabinets stood against the walls, and were filled with rare speci- mens of glass and pottery. . Of course, Theodora sat at the head of the table, and Moultrie at the foot. On his right sat his mother, and on his left his daughter. On Theodora's right was her sister-in-law, Mrs. Sincote, and on her left her niece by marriage, Florence Sincote. " With two others I might mention," said Moultrie, as he sat down, and looking, as he spoke, alternately at his wife and daughter, " our company to-night would be complete." " I think I know what papa is doing," said Theodora, with a musical little laugh, and fastening a bouquet of Jacqueminot roses in her corsage. " He is telling Mr. Higgins to proceed with all possible despatch to the presence of those amphibious personages, the ' horse- marines,' and lay his proposition before them." "Why specially to-night, dear ?" observed the dow- A FAMILY DINNER. 31 ager, with a tone and manner as though she felt com- pelled to ask a question the answer to which was of no possible importance to her " why on the occasion of Geoffrey's birthday ?" " Oh," replied Theodora, still laughing, " Geoffrey's birthday has nothing to do with it, one way or the other. For the last five years Mr. Higgins has come at half past six to talk to papa about reforms in the politics of the Territory. At seven precisely he takes his departure, and is always told by papa to tell his plans to the ' horse- marines.' 1 don't suppose that the ceremony has been intermitted because this is Geoffrey's birthday." " Thanks, dear," said the dowager, languidly ; " it is always so much better to understand things." " And what do you think Tyscovus is doing, Lai?" observed Moultrie to his daughter. " Is he, too, dis- cussing politics ?" " No, father" she always called him " father" she replied, while the color of her cheek deepened a little, and a smile passed over her face, " 1 think John is just about beginning his second pipe. He is sitting in front of the fire in his new house on the butte, and is thinking of us, and and," she added, hesitatingly, " wishing he was here." " Or rather," said Moultrie, laughing, " he is think- ing of you and wishing you were there. Won't that do as an amendment, Lai ?" Lai blushed still more, and all the rest laughed. "How many pipes does he smoke?" inquired the dowager, with a little more interest in her voice than she had yet shown. " Six," replied Lai, as she raised an oyster from its shell to her mouth. 32 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. " Six !" exclaimed the dowager, in astonishment, real or affected " six pipes every evening ! My dear, you should write and tell him that science has demonstrated the fact that the excessive use of tobacco induces a pecul- iar kind of thirst that can only be satisfied by indulgence in whiskey. All inordinate users of tobacco sooner or later die drunkards. ' ' As she uttered these words, with all the oracular force of which she was capable, she squeezed the last drop of juice from a piece of lemon on her last oyster, which act, equally with her speech, gave evidence of the inten- sity of her feelings. " But John never drinks whiskey, grandmother," said Lai, with a touch of indignation in her voice and a look at the old lady that expressed a like feeling. " And I'm quite sure oh, yes, very sure, that he will not die a drunkard." u You should have heard Mr. Quarton's lecture the other night, my dear, and then perhaps you would look at the matter in a different light. Observations made in the cases of two thousand six hundred and ten inveterate smokers of tobacco showed that two thousand five hun- dred and seventeen all but ninety-three drank whis- key. Of course Mr. Tyscovus may be one of the very small proportion that escapes less than four per cent, my dear, if 1 compute correctly but it is an awful risk to run." And her tone became quite pathetic, as she apparently had in her mind's eye the picture of Tyscovus staggering to a drunkard's grave. " I think you are quite right, Lai, as regards Mr. Tyscovus," said Theodora from the other side of the table, " however right mother may be as to the twenty- five hundred and odd other inveterate smok- A FAMILY DINNER. 33 ers. A more abstemious man I never saw in all my life." " Thanks, mamma !" exclaimed Lai, her face beaming with pleasure. u Mr. Quartern does not know John at all, and grandmother knows him very slightly, or she would not say such things of him. Do you think John will die a drunkard, father ?" she continued, turning to Moultrie and taking hold of the hand that was nearer to her. " About as soon as I will, my dear," answered Moul- trie, smiling at her eagerness. (i Perhaps not so soon, for I understand I am to be nominated for Congress to- morrow night, and the canvass and the election may get me into such a habit of dram-drinking that a drunkard's grave may ultimately be my receptacle." " How can you talk so absurdly on such a serious sub- ject, Geoffrey !" ejaculated his mother, holding up both hands, as though horrified at his scoffing manner. " And is it really possible," she continued, her voice assuming a tone in which astonishment and sorrow were mingled in about equal proportions, ' ' that an American gentle- man cannot become a candidate for membership in the legislative body of his country without being obliged to contract the awful habit of dram-drinking, and incurring the risk of filling a drunkard's grave ?" " I am afraid, mother," rejoined Moultrie, looking at the dowager with a humorous expression on his face, " that I shall have to answer your question in the nega- tive that is, if the American gentleman aforesaid desires to be elected. I suppose," he added, looking as though he were thinking deeply on the subject, " that vicarious drinking would do. He might, I mean for a small con- sideration, and, of course, supplying the whiskey, hire 34 A STKONG-MIKDED WOMAN. men to do his drinking for him ; but I fear such a pro- cedui^ would not be any better on the score of morality than doing it himself." " Geoffrey didn't tell you, mother," said Theodora, " that he has almost made up his mind to enter the field of politics. He thinks he would like the life, and, more- over, he is not without the hope that he may be of some service to the country." " I hope he will do nothing of the kind," rejoined the dowager. (( Even if he was joking about the dram- drinking and he has got so lately that I scarcely ever know whether he is in earnest or not he would have to associate with such horrid people that it would be diffi- cult for him to escape contamination." " Well, mother, you have given your vote in the negative," said Moultrie, good-humoredly, " and a very emphatic vote it is. I propose to be entirely under female influence to-night, and to do just as the majority may determine. I have great faith in the intuitions of women, and this time will be guided by them. Now, Lai, it's your turn. What do you say ?" " Yes," she answered, unhesitatingly. " That seems to be as emphatic a vote in the affirma- tive as mother's was in the negative. Now, won't you tell why you think I ought to go into politics ?" " But," said Lai, smiling, t( I thought voters did not give their reasons when they voted. Besides," she added, with a demure look at her grandmother, " my reasons would be so different from " " From those I have advanced," interrupted the old lady. " Don't be restrained on that account, my dear. It is so refreshing in these days of disrespect for their elders to hear a young lady speak diffidently of differing A FAMILY DI^NEE. 35 from those that have had more experience of the world than she has, that I think you deserve encouraggiarfent. Pray, go on." " Yes, I will," exclaimed Lai, with a little quickness and decision in her voice, and a slight heightening of her color. " 1 do not think my father could be injured by any associations he chose to make. He might go witli drunkards, and thieves, and murderers, and instead of them making him bad, he would make them good. That is what I think, and I think the people ought to be glad to get such a man as my father to go to their Congress and help to make their laws, for he could not make any but good ones. ' ' " Brava !" cried Moultrie, clapping his hands. " Now I shall confidently expect the votes of all the other free women. Come, Julia, it is your turn next." " Oh, I vote yes ! I certainly agree with Lalage. You ought to go to Congress for the sake of the coun- try." " Thanks ! Now, Florence, although you are under age we'll allow you this time to express an opinion. Speak, immature young woman !' ' " I vote no," said Florence, without hesitation ; " be- cause if you went to Congress this winter you couldn't take me skating, as you promised." " Already self-interest has entered into the election. But suppose, Florry, I should get your cousin, Jack Willdower, to take you to the rink, could I then have the benefit of your vote in the affirmative ?" " Geoffrey !" exclaimed his mother, before Florence could answer, " I am astonished that you should even hint with approval at such a crime as bribery at elec- tions. To be sure, this little episode is all for the sake 36 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. of amusement at least," slie added, with a little cough, " I suppose so. Still jour tone of levity cannot but tend to lead an impressionable child like Florence into wrong paths, and predispose to the formation of loose opinions relative to that curse of American politics bribery. She is just now a close student of ' McWholley's Political Economy,' in which, I assure you, the doctrines ex- pressed are very different from those I have heard to- night." " Oh, yes, I forgot that Florry 's political morals were being looked after by Professor McWholley. We had quite a little dispute, 1 recollect, relative to the child studying such a subject as political economy. I looked into McWholley's book and 1 found it pretty tough reading. How far have you got, Florry ?" " Only as far as ' Capital,' Uncle Geoffrey." " Well, Florry, stop right there, and you will be fol- lowing the example of every one of your countrymen and women, ( present company excepted,' of course. However, keep your vote as it is, for if you were to change we shouldn't have the benefit of the views of the lady who presides over this table. Madame," he con- tinued, bowing to Theodora, " you have the casting vote. My fate is in your hands. " " So that, after all," said Theodora, with a merry laugh, " it will probably result in your being guided by what I told you when you first mentioned the subject to me" " And that was ?" interrupted the dowager. ' To accept by all means, not only because the nation will be benefited by his going to Congress, but because it will do him good, and, again, because he wants to go. So it is settled ; and if he is tendered the nomination he A FAMILY DINNER. 37 will accept ; and if lie accepts lie will be elected, I hope. There, however, he will have to do without our votes. ' ' Lai waved the end of her table-napkin in token of her delight at the way the voting had gone, and Moultrie returned thanks to his supporters in a humorous little speech. As to the dowager, she seemed for the moment to be somewhat chagrined at the result, but she soon recovered her equanimity, and went on saying sharp things to everybody and being treated good-naturedly in return. All appeared to know that her bark was worse than her bite, and that she often expressed the most pre- posterous opinions merely for the sake of having the grievance of being contradicted. * i I knew Count Felinski Tyscovus, Lalage, the father of your John," said the dowager, apparently having gathered together her forces for another assault. " He married a friend of mine, and I was one of her brides- maids, as I have told you before." " Yes, grandmother," observed Lai, not raising her eyes from her plate, upon which there was a mushroom she was strenuously endeavoring to capture, but which continually eluded her fork. " He was a very remarkable man, a great scholar, and yet a very unusual combination a thorough man of the world, using the expression in its best sense." " Yes, grandmother, I heard you say the other day that his son was very much like him." The old lady looked surprised for a moment, and then, without replying to Lai's observation, she turned to Moultrie. " I suppose you will hardly do more than take up a hotel residence in Washington, and that you will leave Theodora and Lalage here. It will be so easy for you 38 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. to run over every Friday night, if you wish to do so, and stay till Monday." " Perhaps you are anticipating a little," he said, smil- ing. " I am not elected yet ; but I think I may say that if the people of that portion of the city of New York constituting the really," he added, after a pause, "I forget the number of the Congressional District, but whichever it is require my services, we shall probably take a house there and set up an establishment. That at least was the conclusion that Theodora and I came to last night." " And take Lalage away from all the educational ad- vantages she has here ! Oh, Geoffrey ! I am sure you have not thought of this matter. Think what she will lose by being cut off from her studies and other means of mental improvement. And think, also, of what she will gain by being introduced into such a society as that of "Washington." " Don't trouble yourself about Lalage, mother, please," said Moultrie, gravely. u She may safely be trusted to do what is right regardless of her inclinations. Is it not so, dear ?' ' he continued, turning toward her with a loving smile on his face. She made no answer save by a look that he under- stood, and then she raised his hand to her lips. u Lai will decide that matter for herself , mother," said Theodora. " But we hope you will spend at least a por- tion of the winter with us should Geoffrey be elected." ic I ! I go to Washington ! I voluntarily place my- self in such a hot-bed of imbecility, and vulgarity, and corruption ! My dear," she went on, with a tone of outraged dignity, ff if you knew me better you would not make such a suggestion." A FAMILY DINNER. 39 " But it was I who proposed it," interrupted Moultrie. " You !" exclaimed liis mother ; " so much the worse, then, for you do know me better." " You spent a season there once, I remember," said Moultrie, in his defence, " and if I recollect aright you appeared to enjoy it. Indeed, if I am not mistaken, it was there you first made the acquaintance of the gentle- man who subsequently became your husband and my father." " Yes, but that was before the present race of poli- ticians came into power. However, we will not continue the subject." When the dowager made this observa- tion, it was simply a feint to cover her retreat in a re- spectable way. " This is your birthday," she continued, " and as the champagne has now come, I propose your health, and that of your wife, and of your daughter, and may you always be to them as good a husband and father as you have been to me a son." Moultrie was much touched by these words of his mother, and rising from his chair, bent over and kissed her forehead, while all the others drank the toast that the dowager had proposed. Then Theodora, and Lai, and Mrs. Sincote, and Florence kissed Mouitrie and his mother, so that it looked at one time as though the dinner was going to end in a grand oscuiatory divertise- ment, as the eating of the dessert, which had just begun to be served, was altogether suspended. However, when every one had recovered composure, and the women had touched their eyes with the corners of their handkerchiefs to absorb the tears that great mental pleasure so generally causes to flow from their lachrymal apparatus, the discussion relative to plans for the future was resumed. There was no doubt that Moultrie would 40 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. receive the nomination for Congress from an indepen- dent political organization, made up of the best men of both the antagonistic parties, and scarcely a doubt of his election by a large plurality. In the depths of her heart his mother was rejoiced at the prospect of a new road to distinction being offered to her son, but she was so con- stituted that opposition to everything suggested by others was a necessity of her mental organization. As Moultrie had said to Theodora soon after their marriage, she took the place in the family that the advocatus diaboli occu- pies when a pious individual is proposed for canoniza- tion. She brought forward all possible objections to the proposed measure, and then ended by becoming, after its adoption, one of its most strenuous supporters. In the present instance the evidence of a revolution in her sentiments relative to Moultrie going into politics, and then taking up a permanent residence in Washington during the sessions of Congress, was not long in being forthcoming, and before the company arose from the dinner-table she had not only become an adherent of both plans, but had admitted that it was just possible that she might accept the invitation given her and spend a portion of the coming winter at the seat of govern- ment. During the whole dinner it was observed that Florence had exhibited a preoccupied air that not even the voting and the reference to skating had been entirely competent to remove. When the time came for her to leave for the night, she stood hesitatingly, as though there were still something on her mind, which her uncle observing, called her to him, and said : "What's the matter, I lorry? You look as though you were expecting the sudden advent of the day of A FAMILY DINNER. 41 judgment, or some other awful catastrophe. "What is it?" " She has been told not to speak unless she is spoken to," observed her grandmother, looking around the table as though she thought the inhibition might properly be applied to the rest of the company. " I saw that she was worried about something or other, but I was anxious to see whether or not she would remain silent in the face of the evident desire to speak that was present. Now you have ruined my experiment in pedo-discipline. " " Pedo-discipline !" exclaimed Moultrie, laughing heartily ; " what in the name of all that is learned is pedo-discipline ? Oh, yes," he added, as his classical knowledge, rather musty from disuse, came to his aid, " I recollect. "Well, mother, if there is ever an in- quisition established for the special discomfort of chil- dren, 1 hope you will be made grand inquisitor. Have I your permission, madam, to allow Florry to tell her troubles?" " Geoffrey, I declare you're getting to be incorrigible. I really do not know to what the change in you is to be attributed. No ; you need not look at your wife with that silly expression on your face. She has had nothing to do with it. I noticed the beginning before your mar- riage. But 1 got no thanks for all the pains I am taking with Florence's education. Julia takes no interest in the matter" " Oh, mother !" from Mrs. Sincote " and the whole burden falls on me,' ' she went on, not deign- ing to notice the interruption. " You may speak, Flor- ence,' ' addressing the child, who had remained standing in the middle of the room with her hands crossed before her. " Tell your uncle what troubles you, my dear. He is a very great man, and when he gets into Congress 42 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. intends applying a torch to the Potomac. " This sally of the old lady's caused much amusement, and when the laugh had ceased Florence began. " If you please, uncle, there are two things " " One at a time, Florence," interrupted the dowager. " How often have I told you not to impair the clearness of any statement you may have to make by mixing your ideas as though you were making a plum-pudding. If you are about to ask questions, keep each entirely distinct from the others. Now, first ?" " If you please, uncle, what is a horse-marine ?" A burst of laughter from all but the dowager greeted this question. " Now, Geoffrey," she exclaimed, " I hope you see the folly of talking nonsense before a child whose mind is yet in a chrysalis state, and who is therefore not able to discriminate between your sense and your nonsense, if," she added, " there is any difference. You may shake your head and point at Theodora. It is of no consequence who used the word. You are the re- sponsible one. ' Horse-marines,' my dear," turning to Florence, " is not a word that you will find in any dic- tionary, unless in one entirely devoted to slang, if there is such a book. It is an expression used, I am sorry to say, sometimes by educated and refined people, to signify the improbability or ridiculousness of something told them. If there was such a being as a horse-marine, he would be a naval soldier mounted on a horse, which, of course, would be an absurdity. I hope, Florence, you will never be guilty of uttering such a slangy word. " The dowager looked around triumphantly as she delivered this philippic, and then inquired, in her softest tones, ' i What was the other matter, my dear ?" A FAMILY DINNER. 43 " Uncle Geoffrey, and Aunt Theodora, and Cousin Lalage all seemed to think that it was the same time at Hellbender that it was here, while at seven o'clock here it was only about five o'clock at Denver, and not five at Hellbender ; so you see Dr. Willis and Mr. Tyscovus were not saying ' horse-marines ' and smoking pipes. They have just about begun now," she continued, look- ing at the clock on the mantelpiece. " Come and kiss me, my dear !" exclaimed the dow- ager, holding out her arms, into which Florence rushed, while the rest clapped their hands in applause of the depth of learning displayed by the child. " Now, you see what education can do. I almost feel repaid for all my anxiety on your account. How much better, my child, to cultivate your understanding in the way in which I perceive you are doing, than to fill your mind with ideas of slang expressions like horse-marines.' Professor Maltanbroon is, I see, doing his duty by you. Now, .good-night ; kiss your mamma, and make your courtesies to your uncle, and aunt, and cousin. She is a very intelligent child," she continued, after Florence had gone off with her nursery governess, " and if I can only keep her from your influence, Geoffrey, she will make a remarkable woman. ' ' " If she were my daughter," said Moultrie, not notic- ing his mother's parting shot, " I should prefer that at her age she should be skating with her cousin Jack Willdower rather than to see her bothering her little brain with questions of longitude. What does it profit a girl if she learns that Denver is thirty-one degrees of longitude west of New York and gets Saint Vitus's dance, or some other horrid nervous disease ?" " Florence is as far from any tendency to nervous dis- 44 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. ease as you are. I think you might give me credit, Geoffrey, for having some common-sense. Heaven knows, I brought up you and Julia carefully enough, and I think what 1 could do for my children I might be trusted to do for my grandchildren." " Certainly you can, my dear mother. If Florry only fares as well as Julia and I did, and develops as strong an intellect, you will have your reward. But what is this?" as the servant brought him a telegraphic des- patch. " Ah," he continued, " from our absent friends : your father, my dear, and Tyscovus, Lai. Sending congratulations to me and love to all. It is pleasant to be thought of by those we love. Come !" as he rose from the table ; " Theodora will play one of Chopin's Polonaises for us, and Lai will sing that new song she has been practising for a week." CHAPTER III. A POLITICAL MEETING. MOULTRIE liad received the nomination for Congress, and a great degree of activity was being manifested by the political adherents of the several candidates in placing the merits of their respective standard-bearers prominently before the public. According to the in- dications, it appeared to be extremely probable that Moultrie would be chosen ; but the managers of his canvass were old party hands, who did not allow their confidence to interfere with their energy. Meetings in favor of Moultrie were being held in various parts of the district, at many of which he had appeared, and had delivered addresses in explanation of his political princi- ples, and of the course which, if elected, he should feel called upon to follow. The question upon which interest mainly centred was that of the tariff. Neither of the candidates of the old political organizations had ex- pressed themselves sufficiently clearly on the subject to satisfy a large body of advanced political economists, who were in favor of practical free-trade, and who had succeeded in bringing a good many workingmen to see the subject in the same light in which it appeared to them. Moultrie had answered in a very satisfactory manner the questions they had put to him, and although he did not go so far as some of the gentlemen who were active in his support, he was considered to be sufficiently 46 A STKONG-MIKDED WOMAN. enlightened on the subject to serve as an entering wedge into the matter of revenue reform. Thus, Moultrie was very far from being in favor of the abolition of custom houses, as were many of the younger and more enthusiastic members of the u Free-Trade Alliance," which had been the chief instrument in bringing about his nomination. lie recognized the fact that a tariff properly adjusted upon articles of universal consumption was of all other means for raising revenue for the support of the government the easiest of manip- ulation and the least oppressive. But at the same time he had a holy horror of " protec- tion," as it is called, but which, in his opinion, ought to be designated " destruction." He had thought long and deeply upon the subject, and had arrived at the opinion that under the specious plea of offering protection to American labor, and pretending to give employment to the workingman, a high tariff laid upon those articles of foreign manufacture or growth that come into competi- tion with our products not only taxed the people at large for the support of a few, but was really calculated to destroy the very industries it was intended to foster. Only the very day upon which he had been nominated, Mr. Curt, a shoe manufacturer in West Broadway, who had employed at one time over five hundred men and women, had called upon him to explain how the high duty on shoes was ruining his business. " Not only is the leather taxed at a high rate," said- this gentleman, " but every single article that enters into the construc- tion of a shoe the tools with which it is made, the clothes the workmen and workwomen wear, the bread they eat, the medicine they take when they are sick everything, in fact, that, directly or indirectly, is connected with a A POLITICAL MEETING. 47 shoe has a protective tax put on it. As a consequence," he continued, " I cannot make shoes as cheaply as they can make them in England, and, accordingly, I have no foreign market. I used to send every year thousands of pairs to Brazil, Mexico, and Cuba, but now I send none, for the English manufacturer undersells me. My only market is the United States. Over-production is the consequence, prices fall, and I have been obliged to discharge half my working force. I want no ' protec- tion,' and I have come to learn from your own mouth just how you stand on this question." Moultrie had no difficulty in laying his views before Mr. Curt, and in satisfying that gentleman as to his ex- act position on the tariff question.' "If," said the manufacturer, on taking his leave, " you can secure a re- duction of fifty per cent from the duty on shoes, 1 shall be able to employ double the number of men and women that I do now, for then I shall be able to compete with the world. ' ' To be sure, the " Protectionists to American Industry" were up in arms against Moultrie, and they did not fail to tire their batteries upon what they called his " fine-spun theories." They alleged that he was of all men least competent to discuss a question of the kind, or to under- stand it in its minute connections with every condition of American life, for he was only an American in name, the greater portion of his life having been passed and his wealth acquired in foreign countries. They called his attention to the silk manufacture, which was being built up under his very eyes, and solely as the result of the high duty placed upon the foreign fabric. They ad- vanced the fact that all young nations were protectionists, and that only old ones, whose industries were established, 48 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. and which hence did not need the fostering care of the State, were in favor of free- trade. And then they said, " How much better for us to make all we need and pay our own people for it, than to buy the products of foreign nations, and send the gold arid silver out of the country to pay for them !" " Without protection," said the Hon. Marcus Aurelius Jackson, who was the sitting member and desired a re-election, " we should be a nation of farmers and miners, with a stray lumberman here and there. Perhaps that is what the gentleman, my opponent, desires, for I understand he has immense mining interests. It probably makes no difference to him where his gold and silver and copper go. The more products of the pauper labor of Europe that come into the country, the greater will be the demand for his precious metals to pay for them metals which, I am given to understand, are torn from the bowels of the earth not by the Americans, nor by our Irish or German brethren, nor even by our colored friends, ' ' he added, as he looked around the hall in which he was speaking, and saw a small group of negro men in one corner of the room, " but by the offscourings of Asia, the degraded Mongol, the leprous Chinese, who, being too low in the scale of creation to understand what an American home is, and whose puny bodies can be kept alive on an amount of food upon which a robust, iron-muscled Caucasian or African would starve, are willing to work for a tenth part of the wages he would have to pay one of you. Think of this, my friends," he continued, after he had recovered the breath spent in this long sentence, " and give your votes to him who knows what your interests are, and who is prepared to serve you to the utmost of his limited ability, and with all the fidelity he has hitherto shown." A POLITICAL MEETING. 49 This speech was received with great applause by a large assemblage, and the changes were rung time and again on the points brought forward by the honorable gentleman, so that if a ballot could have been taken then and there the speaker would have been elected by an al- most unanimous vote. But not a hundred yards distant, and in another hall, another meeting was being held, and this was constituted mainly of the supporters of Moultrie, together with about fifty workmen belonging to the other parties, who had been specially invited to hear the speech of the Hon. Tom Burton on the question " Does Protection Protect ?' ' The Hon. Tom Burton was a citizen of Texas, had served the people of his State in the Legislature and in Congress, was a natural born orator in the Texan sense of the expression, and he hated a protective tariff as religiously, or rather as ir-religiously, as the devil is said to hate holy water. He had all the arguments against such an institution at his tongue's end, and he rattled them off so volubly, and interspersed his arguments with so many telling anecdotes, that he put his audience at once in a good humor, and hence did that which of all things was calculated to engage their attention, and to cause them to regard him with favor. He knew perfectly well that, no matter how strongly a speaker may feel what he is saying, if he says it in a dry and uninteresting way he will weary many who will not, or cannot, take the trouble to follow him. He recognized the force with which an orator who makes use of examples and illus- trations, or tells a striking story, conveys the ideas that he is seeking to impress upon his hearers. And he was well aware that most people are satisfied to have others do all 3 50 A STKONa-MLNDED WOMAK. the deep reasoning for them, and to give them only the results. However, the Hon. Tom Burton was a valuable ally, and Moultrie's managers had done well to secure him. It is true they had to pay for him. The Hon. Tom was a luxury, and as he was fully aware of his im- portance in the political world, he made those who needed his services put their hands prettly deeply into their pockets and bring them out well filled. Still, there was no reason for believing that he ever advocated or op- posed a measure against his conscience. The hall in which he was to speak was full, and the invited guests the fifty or more workmen mentioned occupied places of honor on the platform, on which also a half dozen ladies were seated. A prominent shipping merchant presided, and there w^re twenty vice-presi- dents, and nearly as many secretaries, though what duties the occupants of these honorable positions had to perform was not apparent. Their names were read out, and that was the last of them. Probably very few of them attended the meeting. The chairman rose, and after a few remarks explana- tory of the objects of the assemblage, introduced the Hon. Tom Burton of Texas, " whose eloquence was a household word from one end of this great and glorious Union to the other, and who had made a special study of the subject of the tariff in all its relations to the producer, manufacturer, and consumer, and for whom he would now ask their attention." Then, amid tremendous applause, the honorable gentle- man arose. First he bowed to the chairman, then to the ladies, then to the fifty workmen in their places of honor, then to the great audience before him. He began with a funny story, which set every one A POLITICAL MEETHSTG. 51 to laughing ; then he told how unequally the existing tariff worked, and how, with protection as its object, it never could, although formed with the wisdom of all the po- litical tinkers in the country, be anything else but an oppression upon the whole nation for the benefit of the few, and eventually a curse, even to those who at first might derive an unfair advantage from its workings. All this and much more he said, and in a way that, if not deep, or even if not strictly correct, carried conviction to the hearts of all that heard him. For he seemed to believe so firmly every word he uttered, that his very positiveness was sufficient to prevent the timid ones who heard him allowing a doubt of his infallibility to arise in their minds. Then, with a panegyric on Moultrie, in which, while giving him unstinted praise, he scarcely passed the limits of good taste, he sat down amid the plaudits of the meeting. Several of the workmen asked him pertinent questions, to all of which he answered good-naturedly and apparent- ly satisfactorily, and the chairman was about to declare the assemblage adjourned, when one of the ladies arose and requested permission to say a few words. A hun- dred voices from various parts of the hall cried " Go on,' ' and the chairman bowing his consent, she proceeded with her remarks. But hardly had she gotten beyond the opening sen- tences which, however, gave no clew to the purport of what she intended to say than the large assemblage broke out into a perfect uproar of cheers and clapping of hands. The cause was not a matter of doubt ; for com- ing down the aisle were Moultrie and three or four friends, with whom he had been making a tour of the district, and visiting the places where meetings were 52 A STEONG-MINDED WOMAK. being held. He was obliged to ascend the platform to thank the people for their attendance, and to congratu- late them and himself for having so able an advocate of the principles of a tariff for revenue only as his friend, the Hon. Tom Burton. Then, amid renewed applause, he sat down, and the lady speaker resumed her remarks. " Your chairman," she said, " has not deemed it necessary to ask my name ; and as I am probably un- known by personal appearance at least to a majority of those present I will state that I am Rachel Meadows, and that I appear here to-night as the advocate of wom- an's rights." ' i But, my dear madam, ' ' interrupted the chairman, " this is a meeting called for an entirely different pur- pose ; and however much some of us may be in favor of extending woman's influence and power in political matters, this is not the place in which to air our views." " 1 understand," replied the lady, " that this meeting was called for the purpose of advocating the election of Mr. Geoffrey Moultrie to Congress, and for placing his claims to that honor before the people. As it is likely that the subject of woman's rights and disabilities will be introduced into Congress at its next session, I think it desirable that we should ' know how Mr. Moultrie stands on the question. It is true that we have no votes, but I think we have influence, and we propose to use it hence- forth in order to obtain for the educated, intelligent, quick-minded women of America what you give to every ignorant foreigner who comes to your shores. I had proposed putting my interrogatories to you, Mr. Chair- man ; but as the candidate is now present, we hope to hear from him. 1 have only to add that I am the spokes- woman of the Committee of the < United "Women of A POLITICAL MEETING. 53 America,' and that we are sent here by that large and influential organization." " But, madam," rejoined the chairman, " the ques- tion is not an issue of the present campaign, and " "If the chairman will excuse me," said Moultrie, rising and coming forward, " I will say that 1 hope the lady may be allowed to proceed, and that 1 will endeavor to answer any questions that may possibly bear a relation to my course as a member of Congress, should you see fit to send me to represent you in that body. ' ' Up to this time the vast assemblage had preserved so complete a degree of quiet, that, to use an exaggerated but familiar expression, " a pin might have been heard to drop." It was evident, however, that very great in- terest was felt in this episode, and certainly that there was no feeling against the lady who wished to be heard. This was rendered still more apparent by the applause which greeted Moultrie's remarks. Everybody therefore waited with eagerness for what was next to come. The chairman turned to the lady, who had remained standing while Moultrie was speaking, and she resumed her re- marks. Miss Rachel Meadows was not unknown to the read- ing or the listening public of the United States, for she had for several years written for the magazines and for the newspaper press many trenchant articles on the woman question, and had spoken to a like effect from the lecture-platform in various parts of the country. Al- though on the present occasion she had maintained her position with firmness and dignity, it was evident from the slight flush that mantled her handsome face and the slight nervous motions of her hands that she felt a little out of place before an audience composed entirely of men. 54 A STKONG-MINDED WOMAN. She did not look as though she were over twenty-five years of age, and her manners and speech were those of an educated woman accustomed to associating with peo- ple of refinement. She was not sufficiently advanced in years to warrant the designation of " old maid. ' ' Neither was she deficient in those personal attractions, the want of which, and the consequent inability to get a hus- band, are popularly supposed to be the chief characteris- tics of the agitators for the extension of woman's rights and privileges to an equality with those possessed by man. She was, perhaps, a little over the medium height of women, and she was dressed plainly and yet in the per- fection of neatness. Her hands were properly gloved and her feet nicely shod. As to her face, it was healthy looking ; her features were not large enough to be re- marked for their size, or so small as to give the idea of insignificance, and it was full of expression of the kind that one likes to see on a woman's face. There was nothing hard about it ; the lines were not drawn rigidly ; the contours were graceful and flowing ; and as she stood there, calm and self-possessed, waiting patiently for the decision as to whether she should or should not be allowed to speak, and exhibiting just enough emo- tional disturbance to show that she was a woman, the sympathy of the audience went with her, and one strong point was gained before she had begun to state her case. a I am much obliged to you," she said, addressing Moultrie, who had remained standing, " for coming to my aid, but it is no more than I expected from the hus- band of a woman who has shown the world that a love for science is not incompatible with filial and wifely duty. But it is not much that 1 have to say, and it is not my intention to advance any arguments in support of doc- A POLITICAL MEETING. 55 trines which are very dear to many women for we think the future happiness of our sex depends greatly upon their establishment but with which, and with what can be said in their favor, it may safely be assumed that you are fully acquainted. I merely desire to ask two ques- tions, and then, whatever may be your answers, I shall have no more to say : u Pirst, 1 understand that a bill will be introduced into the next Congress providing that no public land shall hereafter be devoted to any college, university, or other institution of learning that makes any discrimina- tion between the sexes in its courses of instruction. 61 Second, an attempt will be made to allow women to vote and to hold offices in the District of Columbia and in all Territories belonging to the United States. " I desire to know, on behalf of the committee of the ' United Women of America,' whether, in the event of your election to Congress, you will support these meas- ures 2" She spoke with perfect ease and with a clear and dis- tinct voice, which was heard in every part of the large room, and which was, moreover, what Moultrie specially admired, soft and melodious, without a shrill note or piercing tone in any of its inflections. When she sat down there was a murmur of applause throughout the hall, subdued, it is true, but none the less expressive of the sympathy, if not the entire approval, of the audience. It appeared as though the strong men present were loath, while desirous of showing their re- spect for the speaker, to let out their full strength in the way of signifying their appreciation, under the appre- hension that to do so would be an act of discourtesy to a woman. 56 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. " I am very glad," said Moultrie, " to have the op- portunity of saying a few words upon what may be called the ' woman question,' and I may at the outset of my remarks state that I am in favor of every woman in this and every other land being allowed all possible facilities for studying any subject in science, literature, or art that she chooses, and of getting her living in any honorable way she may select. These are her rights as a human being, of which no man, or body of men, should have the power to deprive her. I will also state and to this view i have recently become a convert that I think no one has any right to object to her seeking her education wherever she thinks she can get it best. If she wishes to go to Harvard, or Yale, or Columbia, or any other seat of learning from which she is now ex- cluded, 1 think she ought to be allowed to go, provided she has arrived at years of discretion, and is hence pre- sumably competent to decide for herself. But I am free to say that in my opinion the co-education of the sexes is inexpedient ; at least now, when the details of plans to be followed have not been sufficiently considered, and while the world is, as it were, unprepared for the in- novation. I feel, however, that I have no right to stand in the way of any woman who thinks differently, except in the matter of giving my advice. '' Relative to the specific question put to me, I have to say that I should certainly vote against the proposed bill, and for the reason that it would be of no practical benefit. It would simply be declaratory, and would not be of the slightest binding force on any subsequent Con- gress having the disposition of the public lands. " In regard to the second measure : while I doubt the expediency of conferring the franchise and the right to A POLITICAL MEETING. 57 hold any State office upon women, I am in favor of giv- ing them both privileges, when I am satisfied that they really desire them. If the ' United Women of America ' can convince me that they actually represent their sex in this country, and especially the women of the District of Columbia and of the Territories, I will vote for the proposed bill with great pleasure." He sat down amid the most tremendous applause, and then, after the transaction of a little routine business, such as the appointment of committees to watch the polls and to bring out the infirm or aged voters, the meeting was adjourned. " They'll use all their influence against you," said the Hon. Tom Burton to Moultrie, as they walked up Fifth Avenue, arm in arm, on their way to the latter's residence, to smoke a cigar and have a little quiet talk. " There are perhaps fifty men in the district who are in strong sympathy with them, and who, of course, will now be dead against you, and they can probably control as many more for the asking men who don't care a six- pence one way or another, and who will vote just as somebody they like tells them. Fancy being visited by Miss Rachel Meadows and asked to vote for Marcus Aurelius Jackson, or Titus Andronicus O'Leary, or who- ever the other fellow may be ! By George ! I'm afraid I should give in myself, strong as I am in the faith." He laughed pleasantly as he spoke, and without giving Moultrie time to interpose a word went on : " You might have been a little less decided with them. You ought to have let off a few theoretical abstractions relative to lovely woman and the important place she occupies in the ' Grand Arcanum of Nature.' I don't know what the ( Grand Arcanum of Nature ' is, but 1 58 A STKONG-MLNDED WOMAN. use it a great deal in Texas, and it always tells. I sup- pose, from first to last, I've got as many as a thousand votes by the judicious use of that expression. Then you ought to have made more reference to the intelligence of the committee, and especially of the spokeswoman, and have piled on the compliments to them and the whole sex, and have ended by declaring that when you gave a vote against the interests of the sex to which your mother, your sister, your wife, your daughter, belonged, might your tongue cleave to the roof of your mouth. Oh, if I had had the answering of those questions I wouldn't have committed you one iota ; I'd have had all the ladies in a good humor, and they'd have gone away convinced that you were sound on the woman ques- tion ! Consequently, you would have had a hundred more votes than you will have. You will probably be able to do without them, but you are no politician." Moultrie laughed. " I am afraid you are right," he said, "and that I never will be able to refrain from speaking exactly as I feel. But I think you overlook another side of the question, that which relates to those men who would have been disgusted with any shilly- shallying on a matter of great importance, and who would have voted against me if I had attempted a befog- ging process, but who now will support me. ' ' " There may be something in that," remarked the Hon. Tom, reflectively, " but not much ; you see, the millennium hasn't come yet, and when it does it won't show itself first in politics. For the present, therefore, when you are cornered, as you were to-night, ' glittering generalities ' are the things to use. They always ex- cite enthusiasm, and make all feel that you are their friend. But, by Jove ! Miss Rachel Meadows is a stun- A POLITICAL MEETING. 59 ner. Did you notice her eyes, and her glorious mouth, with its two rows of pearls ? And her pretty little hands and feet ? A pretty foot gets me." " You certainly seem to be ' got, ' ' ' said Moultrie, with a laugh. " I shouldn't be surprised to find you erelong among the most strenuous supporters of ' woman's rights.' I've known of Miss Meadows for some time, but never had the pleasure of seeing her until to-night." " I've seen her before. 1 heard her lecture in Galves- ton last winter for two hours on a stretch, and when she got through I was the only one left in the room ; for, you see, we don't believe much down our way in what you call c woman's rights.' Our women have all the rights they want, and they seem to be not altogether dis- satisfied with their position." " That's what their ' advanced' sisters would call the 6 supineness of their slavery.' There's a good deal in the question, however, and my mind is still unsettled in re- gard to several of the more important points involved. I shall give a great deal of attention to them soon, and try to arrive at more definite conclusions." " I'm thinking much more of Rachel Meadows than I am of her doctrines," said Burton. " The poor girl was awfully cut up as she saw one after the other of the audience slipping out ; but she went through to the end, and seemed a little relieved when I complimented her on the strength of her arguments and on her courage. I offered to escort her to the hotel, which was only across the street, but she had her maid with her, and she de- clined with thanks. 1 never saw her again till to-night. I don't think she recognized me, for since then, as I always do when I come to your arctic regions, I have allowed my full beard to grow." 60 A STKONG-MINDED WOMAN. " Why did you not make yourself known to her ?" " Because, my dear fellow, I'm afraid of her. I'm half in love with her already, but I wouldn't marry her for the world, or any other woman holding the views of the relations of the sexes that she holds. She knows too much for me, or at least thinks she does. I steer clear of intellectual women. ' ' Moultrie did not tell his companion that he himself had married a woman who had " dissected all animals, from a man to a caterpillar," had performed experiments in evolution and on the velocity ofjjiejierve-force, had lectured to large assemblies, and held advlmcecTviews in regard to the education of women. He would have men- tioned these facts had there been opportunity ; but they had just then arrived at the door of his house, and Bur- ton, announcing that as it was late he would not go in, lighted his cigar, and strolled down the avenue to his hotel. CHAPTEE 1Y. MISS BKEHEN SPEAKS. RACHEL MEADOWS and her five companions, members of the committee of the " United Women of America," left the meeting feeling that for the time they had been defeated, and jet none the less determined to maintain an undismayed attitude, and to persevere in their efforts toward reform. Two carriages were in waiting for them, and they drove rapidly to Rachel's rooms in the " Joan of Arc," an apartment house, well and hand- somely built, and situated in one of the up-town streets between Fifth and Sixth avenues. Here she lived, with her widowed mother, in comfort, almost in affluence, for the elder lady had an income of nearly three thousand dollars a year, and the daughter, by her pen and her lectures, had no difficulty in adding more than as much again to the common fund. The six ladies entered the " Joan of Arc," and were Boon comfortably seated in Rachel's snug and artistically furnished parlor, which at the same time served as library and writing-room. During the drive nothing had been said in regard to the repulse they had encoun- tered, for there could be no thorough interchange of condolences and indignation while the committee was divided into two equal parts in the two carriages. But now that there was reunion, each one, with the exception of Rachel, was loud in her denunciations of Moultrie, 62 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. and in the expression of her determination to do all in her power to prevent his being elected to Congress. " To think," said Mrs. Cross, who had been divorced from two husbands, and was living rather uncomfortably with the third, but who was a pretty, young woman, scarcely older than Rachel " to think that a man owing, as does Mr. Moultrie, whatever position he has to his wife, who really is intelligent and highly educated, should dare to treat us in that contemptuous manner, just as if we were a lot of children with undeveloped brains !" u I am afraid he is very narrow-minded and very ignorant," observed Miss Richardson, a maiden lady of thirty-five, with literary and artistic aspirations. "He evidently does not know that more than a thousand years ago ladies sat in the English Parliament ; that even during the reign of William the Conqueror women voted and served their country in the Commons, and that peeresses sat, in their own right, in the House of Lords. 1 think I can control six votes, and every one shall be cast for Jackson." " His ignorance and impertinence are more pronounced than 1 have ever before seen, even in a man," exclaimed Miss Billy Bremen, an excitable young lady of a little over twenty years of age, but who had some prominence in the " United Women of America," due to the fact that her father, a wealthy butcher, had, when he died, two years before, left her half a million of dollars in United States bonds, besides the proprietorship of his butchering establishment, from which she derived an income of over twenty thousand a year. Her father, an honest German, had arrived in the country when Billy was still an infant in arms. He was MISS BREMEN SPEAKS. 63 called Johann Schmidt ; but when asked by an official his name on landing, he, thinking he was required to tell where he had sailed from, answered " Bremen," and he afterward found it so very inconvenient to get rid of the designation that he concluded to adopt it. His daughter had been christened Billigheim, from the little hamlet in which she was born ; but this name, having been found impracticable both at home and among her school companions, it had been shortened to Billy, and she was never called by any other appellation. Miss Billy was a stout, fair-skinned, fair-haired, and blue-eyed young woman, whose broad, fat, and com- monplace face was good-humored enough so long as nothing occurred to disturb her equanimity. But when crossed, even in matters of the slightest, or even of no importance, it became purple in color, and her small, expressionless eyes started forward through their little slits, and looked as though they were about to pop out of her head. The doctor had warned her that she must not expose herself to situations in which there was any liability to the excitation of anger or of other strong and suddenly-produced emotion, as he was afraid an epileptic paroxysm might some day be produced. But she had persisted in running all risks of the kind, and thus far no serious trouble had been produced. She had received a tolerably fair education, so far as mere schools could give it, but her mind was thoroughly untrained to habits of serious thought, and was, more- over, small, mean, and malicious in all its impulses. Her views on the " woman question" were, however, more advanced than those of any other member of the committee, though why she had ever been drawn into the movement no one knew. She had first appeared on the 64 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. scene with a large subscription, and that had been suffi- cient to pave her way into the hearts of the chief mem- bers of the " United Women of America," and to bring her into notice as a reformer. And she professed to hate the male sex, individually and collectively, with a hatred that nothing seemed com- petent to extinguish or lessen. Unfortunately, as she used to say, she could not get along without men ; but that was entirely owing to social prejudices that stood in the way of women doing certain kinds of work, and to the ignorance and the indolence that prevented them making attempts to supplant man. It is true that the efforts Miss Billy had made in this direction had termi- nated disastrously, and had to be abandoned after they had cost any amount of vexation and no small loss of money. Thus, she had hired a coach woman ; but the first day she drove her mistress in a stylish coupe, with one big gray horse, she knocked down and ran over a little hunchback boy just in front of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and Miss Billy was mulcted in damages to the extent of five thousand dollars, besides the costs of suit and law- yer's fees, footing up a grand total of eight thousand two hundred and seventeen dollars and sixty-three cents. Then she had dismissed the superintendent of her abattoir ', a man who had served her father faithfully for many years, and had put in his place a big burly woman, with instructions to get rid gradually of all the men em- ployed in killing and dressing the animals, and to replace them with women. For twenty-four hours the woman manager did very well ; but the next day was slaughtering day, when it became necessary to do some hard and rather disagreeable work, which, however, she thought she understood better than her subordinates. She inter- MISS BKEMEN SPEAKS. 65 fered to such an extent that every hand employed in the establishment stopped work and walked off, leaving the manager in complete solitude, with forty beeves and as many more calves and sheep lying on the floor dead, but undressed, and, consequently, not ready for market. It was the middle of an exceedingly hot summer, and be- fore other assistance could be obtained the whole had spoiled, entailing a direct loss of several thousand dollars, to say nothing of the injury done to her trade. These had been expensive lessons, and had not been unheeded by Miss Billy, though she groaned inwardly and outwardly every day of her life at the futility of all her efforts to get along in the world without the aid of the sex she so much affected to despise. From all of which the reader will perceive that Miss Billy Bremen was a young woman of strong parts, with a will of her own and with sufficient individuality to have convictions up to which she endeavored to live, though not entirely with the success she desired. She was not altogether honest in her way with the world that is, she was disposed to be sly and to make an unfair use of any advantage that she might have obtained. She kept a corps of spies watching the men in her employ, and whose duty it was to report the slightest infringe- ment of the regulations she had laid down. She did not stop here ; for the members of this inquisitorial body all of whom were women were instructed to carry their observations into the daily lives of her workmen, so that she had a more or less complete and accurate biography of every individual to whom she paid wages. The more men she had in her power, she thought, the more power she would have over the men. " His ignorance and impertinence are unbounded," 66 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. she repeated. " I have had experience with many men, but he is the very worst." No one answered this assertion, and Miss Billy, with her face the color of a cold buckwheat cake, relapsed into silence. Dr. Sarah Brown, a spruce-looking little woman with snapping black eyes, thought an address should be printed and distributed to the public. But Mrs. Swift Forest, who kept a large millinery establishment on Sixth Avenue, declared that they would only waste their money by the proposed course, for that people would not read such documents. She was of the opinion that the plan that offered the best chance of bringing Moul- trie around to their view was to interview his wife, and to try to secure her influence with him on their side. All had now spoken but Rachel, and all looked toward her as though expecting an expression of views from one ivhom they regarded as, in some respects, their leader. But she did not appear to be desirous of saying anything on the subject. She was evidently thinking deeply of what had occurred, and had given very little attention to the indignant remarks that had fallen from the lips of the other members of the committee. Miss Billy Bremen, however, was the most irrepress- ible of those present. She walked up and down the floor, swinging her fat hands and stamping her broad feet with an energy that gave an idea of the storm that was raging within. Finally she stopped immediately in front of where Rachel was sitting, and sticking her hands into the pockets of her jacket as far as they would go, while her face became the color of a pickled cabbage, began to talk, but in a voice so husky, and with such extreme rapidity, that it was difficult for Rachel to com- MISS BREMEN SPEAKS. 67 prehend what she was saying. At last she succeeded, in a measure, in restraining her exuberance to such a de- gree that she could make herself understood. " It was you he insulted, Miss Meadows !" she gasped. fi I wonder how you can sit there looking as cool as a pickerel. It makes my blood boil to think of it. It was an outrage. To dare to tell us that we didn't know our own business ! And you are going to stand all this?" she continued, looking fiercely at Rachel. "I thought you had more spirit." " Don't speak to me in that way, please," said Rachel, calmly, " and don't stand in that manner before me. It is unpleasant, and not what I am accustomed to." " Probably not," answered Miss Billy, in a sneering tone. " If you were, you would have acted to-night with more courage. No wonder we are oppressed when those who pretend to be our leaders show the white flag, and run as soon as the enemy comes in sight. I am ashamed of you ! Yes, ashamed of you ! For one single instant I wish 1 were a man." " And if you were," rejoined Rachel, still with quiet composure, " what would you do ?" " What would I do ? what would I do, Miss Meadows ? I'll tell you what I would do," coming still closer, till she fairly stood over Rachel, and looking at her with fury in her eyes " I'd beat you !" and as she hissed out these words she shook both fists in Rachel's face, as though she really were going to strike her. Rachel rose to her feet, with an expression of superb dignity on her face and in her bearing, before which Miss Billy was fairly cowed. " Leave my house in- stantly,' ' said the indignant woman, pointing to the door, as the impertinent little butcheress slunk behind the 68 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. portly form of Mrs. Cross, in the endeavor to escape the look of anger and scorn that flashed from Rachel's eyes. " Go," she continued, " at once, or 1 will call a police- man to take you out." " Oh, Miss Meadows, please don't proceed to such an extreme measure !" exclaimed Miss Richardson, while the other ladies began adjusting their wraps, preparatory to getting cut of the way. " Remember that the good name of the ( United "Women of America ' is at stake. If this most unfortunate incident should get into the newspapers as it will if you call a policeman it will ruin us in the estimation of the public. Come, Miss Bremen !" turning to Billy, who had not yet gotten over her fright at Rachel's majestic anger. " Come ! I am going, and I will see you safely to your carriage. ' ' Miss Billy thought she detected in the manner exhib- ited by Miss Richardson and the other ladies some indi- cations of a certain amount of sympathy with her in her attack on Rachel. She was an obstinate little wretch when her blood was up, and she thought she was safe. She had long felt that Rachel failed to treat her with the deference which she thought was due to her wealth and her position as a woman of business, and she concluded, while Miss Richardson was speaking, that she would never have a better opportunity than the present to vent her spite, surrounded, as she imagined herself to be, by sympathizing friends. The threat of the police did not disturb her when she had had a little time to collect her thoughts, for she knew enough of those guardians of the public peace in the city of New York to be aware of the fact that when sent for it would be at least half an hour before one of them could make his appearance, and long before that time had expired she would have accom- MISS BREMEN SPEAKS. 69 plished her object, and have been on her way to her resi- dence in East Seventy- fifth Street. " You needn't trouble yourself about the policeman, Miss Meadows," she said, as soon as Miss Richardson had ceased speaking, and Rachel had just put her finger on the little button of the electric bell in order to summon a servant. " I've only a word to say, and then I'll go with these ladies, my friends," she added, waving her pudgy right hand so as to embrace them all in its sweep. " A pretty woman you are to set yourself up as a re- former. I know why you took that Mr. Moultrie's an- swer so quietly, and why you did not dare reply to him. You're in love with him ; that's what you are," she con- tinued, growing bolder with the sound of her own words, and again advancing toward Rachel and shaking her fist in her face. " I could see it all the time he was speak- ing. You ! in love with a married man ! I'll ruin him ; I've got a hold on him that he little suspects. He'll never be elected ! And if ever you dare to talk about me I'll tell the whole world that you're in love with him. Yes ! and what's more, I'll tell his wife. Come, ladies, let us leave this model reformer to think of her lover !" Long before Miss Billy had finished this abusive har- angue Rachel had sunk into a chair, completely over- whelmed by the force and volubility with which each successive malicious falsehood was uttered. She was helpless ; she could no more have pressed the little but- ton that set the electric bell in motion than she could have flown. She could only lie back in her chair with her eyes half closed, waiting, with a painful sense of constriction in her throat that almost suffocated her, for this horrible woman to end her tirade and get out of her presence. But Miss Billy was not done yet. She had 70 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. adjusted her outside clothing to suit herself, though in her agitation and excitement she had gotten several of her " things" awry. She stood by the door, surrounded by Mrs. Cross, Mrs. Dr. Sarah Brown, and Mrs. Swift Forest, who formed a sort of bodyguard for her protec- tion in case an assault should be made, when suddenly she rushed past them, and again stood over Rachel, look- ing down at her with an expression of the most intense vindictiveness on her flat, vulgar face. " I've got him under my thumb, 1 want you to know, miss. Yes, under my very thumb !" putting, as she spoke, the thumb of her right hand into her left palm, and grinding the two surfaces together as a glazier does when he has a piece of putty between them, " and I mean to crush him, too," she continued, sticking both hands close to Rachel's face, " just like that!" giving an extra degree of strength to the operation, so that it really looked as though she would either wriggle her thumb out of joint, or bore a hole in her palm. u Now I'm going, and 1 never mean to darken your doors again ;" with which statement the only pleasant one poor Rachel had heard her make she darted from the room, followed closely by her three sympathizing friends, and leaving Miss Richardson alone with Rachel. " Don't mind her, dear," said Miss Richardson, kneel- ing beside the poor girl and putting her arms around her. " She is a vulgar little beast at best, but I think she is mad stark, staring mad. And I think the other three are as bad as she, if not worse, for they have been brought up with some pretensions to gentility, whereas she was almost born in the slaughter-house, and has lived in it all her life. ' ' " I can't conceive why she should treat me in this MISS BEEMEN SPEAKS. 71 outrageous manner," said Rachel, with a little nervous shiver at the idea of what she had just gone through. " I scarcely know her have never, in fact, met her except at our meetings. ' ' " Perhaps you have slighted her in some way or other, and she has been waiting her chance to he even with you. Or perhaps she is herself in love with Mr. Moul- trie." " Oh, no ; impossible !" exclaimed Rachel. " He is a married man. She certainly knows that. ' ' " I don't think that would be an insuperable obstacle in the estimation of a woman as low-minded as this Billy Bremen. Think of her friend, Mrs. Cross, who fell in love with her present husband while she was still Mrs. Russel, and while Mr. Russel was living, and Mr. Cross was happy in the possession of one wife. Two divorces were necessary there, but they were procured without difficulty. Here only one would be required. Depend upon it, my dear, there is some such notion in the Bremen girl's mind." " It serves one right for associating with such people, even in the way of business only. Mamma warned me against them ; but I thought that if I kept aloof from them socially, it made no difference whom I knew in the committee-rooms or at the meetings. But I see I was wrong." " Yes, I think you were. That is one point in which there is a difference between the ways in which the two sexes are able to manage such things. Men can and do associate with all kinds of people in their business, with whom they never become intimate in any other relation, and whom they would never think of inviting to their houses. But women seem to be incapable of any such 72 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. restricted intercourse. They never know where to draw the line." " Some of them do," said Rachel, with a faint attempt at a smile. " My mother is one. She would buy her meat from Miss Billy for years, and never recognize her outside of her butcher-shop." " Talking of a shop," observed Miss Richardson, with a little laugh and an accent that were not altogether free from a tinge of vindictiveness ; " I was in there the other morning, and she was present, dressed in a suit of green velvet and wearing solitaire diamond earrings as big as filberts. Think of diamonds and velvet at ten o'clock in the morning !" " Amelia !" exclaimed Rachel, with sudden energy, " I am sick of the whole matter. I really begin to think that we have been striving to overthrow the laws of God. We are not the equals of men, and we are meaner in our ways of thinking and acting. No man would have conducted himself as did that fearful woman u Now, my dear child, don't, for Heaven's sake, judge the whole sex by that little ugly beast ! I shall never call her by any other name hereafter than the ' Beast. ' Are you going to sacrifice great principles, upon which your mind has so long been fixed approvingly, because you are disgusted and outraged at the horrible conduct of one low woman ? You say no man could have acted as she did. My dear, there are mean women and mean men, and I have seen some of the latter to whom Miss Billy would be a paragon of decency and magnanimity." " I begin to think that magnanimity is impossible in women." " I don't know," said Miss Richardson, reflectively ; MISS BREMEN SPEAKS. 73 44 perhaps it is in its grandest sense. You see, women are deficient in physical force, and they are hence obliged to resort to more or less finesse in order to accomplish their ends. 1 admit that such a scene as the one we have just gone through would have been almost impossible between men. Before the ' Beast ' had gotten half way through with her vituperation she would, had she and you been men, have been flying out of the window or lying prostrate on the floor from a well-directed blow of your fist. No, no ; you must not give up the great struggle for the right merely because there are some un- worthy women. I cannot conceive of anything more illogical. Even your mother, prejudiced as she is against us, will tell you that. ' ' "I suppose you are right," said Rachel, wearily, " but there are times when I feel terribly discouraged. I see so many women with little, mean, contemptible traits that I am often disgusted with my sex. How sel- dom is it that you find a woman who is not jealous, and suspicious, and envious of all other women who come in her way, and then how unforgiving to those of their own sex who have strayed from the paths of virtue ! How pitiless they can be at such times, and yet how smiling and kind to the very men who have led their weak sisters astray !" " That is true, and it is right that it should be so. Women must ever be the guardians of the purity of their own sex, and must visit with social ostracism all those who violate the laws that society has established. There is no other punishment but such as they can inflict, and it is right that the woman who falls, though she should never, of course, be treated unkindly, should be made to feel that she has done that which saps at the 74 A STKONG-MIKDED WOMAN. very root of the honor of society, and which, though not punishable by the laws of the land, is nevertheless to be mercilessly condemned by a still higher court that of her own sex. I suppose there is scarcely a woman who has, through her misconduct, lost her place in so- ciety who would not gladly suffer ten years' imprison- ment in the penitentiary at hard labor, if that would be accepted as sufficient atonement, and she be reinstated to the position from which she has fallen. There are crimes that we women never pardon ; at least, never to the ex- tent of receiving the offender back as the fit associate of our husbands and brothers, our daughters or sisters. %< Then you must remember, my dear," she went on, after a pause, during which she seemed to be arranging her thoughts so as to make them most effective, u that the worst traits in women have been caused by man's tyranny, and have been developed through his continued refusal to give her an equal opportunity with him in the race of life. You are judging her now by man's stand- ard, and not by her own. Whole classes of animals have cunning implanted in them from the necessities of the situation in which they have been placed. You don't condemn a fox for being sharp-witted, nor the opossum for feigning death in order to deceive his ene- mies. Probably among foxes and opossums those that are the greatest adepts at catching chickens with impu- nity and fooling their captors stand highest in vulpine and didelphic sociology. Doubtless the inherent ten- dency to fraud existing in these animals might be eradi- cated by careful training and kindness continued through- out many generations, just as woman will be improved in the years to come by like treatment." " I never heard such doetrines as these in all my life !" MISS BREMEN SPEAKS. 75 exclaimed Rachel. " They seem to me to be horri- ble." " They are based on natural laws. What right has man to expect us to be frank, and magnanimous, and chiv- alric, when we are treated like slaves petted slaves, perhaps, under the best circumstances, but none the less as slaves ? Slavery always makes its victims deceitful, and incites them to defend themselves and to seek to accomplish their ends secretively and without regard to magnanimity. Chivalry was shown by the knights and feudal lords, not by the vassals. Well, my dear, men are now the lords, and we are the vassals." Miss Richardson had risen while making this little speech, and had begun walking up and down the floor, as though she were on the lecture platform, where she always walked from one end to the other while deliver- ing her lecture. As she concluded she came nearer to Rachel, who had remained in her chair. " I like you," she said, " because you are refined and gentle, and be- cause, in many respects, you are different from any other woman I ever saw. Shall I tell you a secret ? Yes ? Well, 1 will. As a rule, I hate women, although I am always fighting their battles. They are entitled to jus- tice, but that is no reason why I should love them ; and I don't. I have very few friends in the sex, but I should like to count you as one of them, and perhaps," she added, with an accent of timidity, " the dearest of them. Don't answer me now," she went on, seeing Ra- chel about to speak. " If you were to say you liked me, I shouldn't believe you, and if you were to repulse me, I should not like it. No ; wait till you know me better." " You are very honest and very true," said Rachel, much moved by Miss Richardson's frankness. " And " 76 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. "No; you shall not say a word, " putting her hand over KachePs mouth, and laughing a little hysterically, or at least nervously. " Yes," she continued, " you shall. You shall tell me why you did not reply to Mr. Moultrie to-night. You should not really have allowed the matter to go so completely by default. ' ' " There was nothing to say. He had entirely demol- ished my case, and by a few words, which, however, showed that he knew what he was talking about. 1 felt disgusted with the matter and with the ignorance we had displayed. But then he was so gentlemanly and kind in his manner, that I felt almost compensated for my de- feat, and 1 think he is a friend, though a just one, and not at all likely to be led away by sentiment to act against his convictions. ' ' " Ah ! you are, like all other women, willing to sub- mit to be scratched by the lion's claws if the balm be immediately applied. Man may keep you out of your rights ; but if he does so with a smile, and a kind word, and a deferential manner, you are satisfied. As to our ignorance, that is nothing. We can't be expected to know much about statecraft and the ways of legislative bodies when we are carefully excluded from participation in either. Still, I think with you that Mr. Moultrie is better than the other candidates, and I shall use my in- fluence for him, although I said differently just now. The right to change one's mind has not yet been taken from us, thank God !" " 1 am afraid," said Rachel, " that you will have to do without me in the executive committee after this. 1 can never consent to be so placed that I shall be liable to meet that horrid girl again, or even the three women who have apparently decided with her. I shall at once MISS BREMEN SPEAKS. 77 send in my resignation to the president, and I am more than half disposed to abandon the movement altogether.' ' ' ' No, no ; I will not hear of that. There are so few women in good society who are with us that we can't afford to lose you. We'll put the ' Beast ' out. That will be better." " I shall resign," repeated Rachel, with firmness. " That I have determined on fully. As to woman's rights, I believe it is just as Mr. Moultrie said. We have no evidence that the majority of them want any more rights than they have. Look how many of our strongest adherents have left as soon as they were mar- ried, and how many women cease to work when their husbands are competent and willing to support them ! Those who are forced to labor for their daily bread, and who are struggling for new channels through which they can work, abandon the contest as soon as some strong man comes along and marries them. They have been fighting only for themselves, not for a principle. I would not trust myself for I am a woman and I have felt the yearning for some good man's arms to which I could fly with a sense of perfect security and the con- sciousness that their owner would die for me if it were necessary. Yes, it must be very pleasant." " You are demoralized by that ' Beast.' To-morrow you will feel differently." " No, I think not. 1 have been gradually reaching my present convictions. We all act in that way. Look at Mrs. Moultrie ! Before her marriage she was devoted to science, and had studied and practised medicine ; she had dissected human bodies ; she had a physiological laboratory, and performed experiments ; she lectured to mixed audiences. That was all before she had met a 78 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. man whom she could love. At last he came, and the science, and the dissections, and the lectures vanished. I had occasion to write to her this afternoon, but I know what her answer will be." " But you might have married had you so chosen ?" said Miss Hichardson, inquiringly. " Yes, but not to a man I loved. That man I have not yet seen, so far as I know ; but I am waiting for him, and when he comes and asks me, 1 shall marry him." " An honest confession is good for the soul," ex- claimed Miss Richardson, laughing heartily. " I sup- pose there are some women who are incapable of experi- encing the emotion of love, and I think 1 am one of them. Certainly I have never yet seen the man to whom I would be willing to be tied for all my life, and to look up to as my guide and protector. Bah ! it makes me sick to think of it. Thank Heaven, I can guide and protect myself ! 1 want no man about me to growl when his coffee is too weak or too strong to suit his lordship's taste, and to tell me what I shall do or not do ; whom I shall know or not know." " You are as bad as Miss Bremen," said Rachel, laughing in turn. " Billy Bremen ; that little ' Beast ' ! Oh, she's only a fraud ! She'd marry the man who knocks her oxen on the head or cuts her hogs' throats, if he asked her, and she couldn't do any better. Besides, I told you she is in love with Mr. Moultrie. I saw it in her face so far as her puttyish features can show anything. 1 am not joking, and I think she means something by her threat of having him under her thumb." " But what could she mean ?" " I have not the slightest idea ; but that she thinks she MISS BKEMETS" SPEAKS. 79 can injure him, 1 am quite sure. Of course she may be mistaken 1 hope she is but she was too self -satisfied to be lying. There was too much confidence in her own malice for that. However, 1 can't bear to talk about her, and I must go now. Don't mind her, and don't do anything rash in the way of dissolving your connection with the ( United Women of America.' : " I shall certainly resign from the executive committee this very night," said Rachel, with emphasis. " Well, good-night," she continued, "if you will go, though I wish you would stay till mother comes home. She is dining to-night with the Hendersons, old friends of hers who have just returned from Europe. You must really go ? Good -night !" kissing her friend as she spoke. " Don't mind that little ' Beast,' " said Miss Richard- son, in a whisper, as she stepped into the elevator just outside of Rachel's apartment. " Keep your eye on her, but don't worry about her threats. She can't hurt you, at any rate." CHAPTER Y. THE election was to take place in two days. Each of the three contending parties was ready, so far as active work was concerned, and there was not much doubt in the minds of the wise men that Moultrie would be elected by at least a thousand plurality. There was some little talk of the withdrawal of one of the other candi- dates, and negotiations had been initiated looking to that end ; but no agreement could be arrived at that was sat- isfactory to the rank and file, and neither of the rivals, when it came to the point, was willing to retire in favor of the other. It was quite certain, therefore, that there would be a triangular contest, and that the vote in oppo- sition to Moultrie would be about equally divided. Great interest had been taken by Theodora and Lalage in the meetings, addresses, and letters incident to a can- vass of the kind in question. Every morning the news- papers were eagerly scanned for information of what had taken place the day before, and the discussions that oc- curred at the breakfast-table between Moultrie and his wife and daughter relative to past events and future movements were always incidents of great satisfaction to all concerned. On the present occasion they were at breakfast in the pleasant little room devoted to the first meal of the day. Theodora was glancing over the Morning Sentinel, oc- MISS BILLY'S BOMBSHELL. 81 casionally stopping to take a sip of coffee or to cut a little segment from the lamb -chop on her plate. It was the morning after the meeting at which the lion. Tom Bur- ton had spoken, and at which Moultrie had so effectually demolished the committee of the " United Women of America. ' ' He had related the particulars to Theodora on his return home, but she saw them stated here from a somewhat different, though not unfriendly, standpoint, together with editorial comments of a char- acter so flattering to her husband that her cheeks glowed with pride and pleasure. She looked smilingly at him as she handed the paper to Lalage to pass on to him. . " There !" she exclaimed ; " I suppose you are used to haviug pleasant things said of you nowadays ; but read that. It is calculated to make your breast swell with patriotic pride,' as the reporter says his does at the asser- tion that you are going to serve your country in the ' Halls of Congress.' " Moultrie laughed as he took the paper from his daugh- ter's hands. "It is only fair," he said, " that you should see what the other people say. Here is the Daily Controller, which is Mr. Jackson's organ, and here the Avenger, which occupies the like position with Mr. O'Leary. Head the first paragraph, Lai, of each of the leading editorials of those shining lights of journal- ism, and you will see what a wretched man you have for a husband and father. Read them aloud for your mamma's benefit. She is one-sided in her views now, and these may tend to straighten her." Lai took the Controller, and read as follows : " ' A more pitiable spectacle than that exhibited last night at the meeting held by the supporters of Mr. 82 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. Moultrie was never, we venture to say, seen by the peo- ple of this city. A committee of ladies representing that influential organization the " United Women of America" submitted two very simple questions to the candidate through Miss Rachel Meadows, whose elo- quence has so frequently thrilled our readers. Instead of answering them in a manly, straightforward way, Mr. Moultrie hesitated and stammered, and finally ended his non- committal remarks by intimating that both ques- tions were unnecessary, and that the ladies did not know what they wanted. Of course Mr. Moultrie has a right to his own opinions, or even to no opinions ; but that he should have gone out of his way to insult such eminently respectable ladies as those who favored him with their presence last evening was, we think, quite unpardon- able, and will doubtless be resented by the husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons who will attend the polls on "Wednesday next.' ' Theodora laughed a little constrainedly, and it was evident she was annoyed. Lai's face flushed with anger. " The wretch !" she exclaimed. " I wonder how he dared to write such lies ! If I were a man I would go to him with a whip, and I would beat him well." Moultrie smiled at the effect upon the two women. " In Colorado," he said, "such, language would be ample ground for shooting the editor on sight. Here, however, we find it better not to notice him. Now, my dear, let your mamma know what the Avenger thinks of me. I expect to see your blood fairly boil, and each in- dividual hair of your heads stand on end, when you read the comments of the gentleman who conducts Mr. O'Leary's organ. This," putting his finger on a certain 83 paragraph, " seems to embody a little more venom than any other passage. Read it, Lai." " ' There have been quibblers and equivocators, not to use stronger expressions, before Mr. Geoffrey Moultrie appeared upon this sublunary sphere ; but probably the Goddess of Truth never blushed more deeply for a human being trying to wriggle himself out of a false position than she did for that individual last night. It was a humiliating scene for that sex that arrogates to itself all the honor and all the intelligence, to see the free-trade candidate squirm under the pitiless logic of Miss Rachel Meadows. The lady was calm, but im- placable, and her questions went right to the point with a directness that left nothing to be desired by every one, that is, but Mr. Geoffrey Moultrie. He looked as if he wished the ground would open at his feet and engulf him forever from the scornful looks that the indignant lady gave him. We need not remind our readers how different would have been the conduct of Titus Androni- cus O'Leary under like circumstances.' : "It is a shame," said Lai, the tears starting to her eyes, " that a gentleman should be attacked in that out- rageous way. You do not mind it, father, do you ?" she continued, putting her arms around his neck and laying her face against his. ' i My dear, I mind it no more than 1 would a few flakes of snow falling on my seal-skin coat. ' ' " But I really think, Geoffrey," said Theodora, " that this person goes too far. Something ought to be done to restrain such unbridled vituperation. ' ' " But what can be done ? Of course it is not worth while to quarrel with such people. And then you must remember that these papeft are very low specimens of 84 A STRONG -MIND ED WOMAN. the press of New York. You would not find such jour- nals as the Oracle, the Citizen, the Annunciator, and half a dozen others 1 could name indulging in drivel like that. The only thing to do is to laugh at them if you can, and to bear in mind that every American who ' runs ' for an office takes his reputation in his hand." " I hope mother will not see these papers," said Theodora, trying to raise a smile. " She would be sure to tell you that it was just what you had every reason to expect, and just what she told you ; but she would, at the same time, be greatly grieved to know that her son was spoken of so scandalously." " Yes," laughed Moultrie, " she would be very indig- nant and very self-satisfied ; but the indignation would predominate and continue, while the self-satisfaction would die out as soon as she had uttered ' I told you so. ' But, my dear, get the Controller and the Avenger out of your mind, for really what they say is of no conse- quence in my estimation. Shall I have you with me this afternoon in the Park ? "What do you say, you and Lai, to going out to Jerome Park to dinner ? There are no races to-day, but the cuisine is quite good now, Burton tells me." " I should like it very much," answered Theodora. ' ' And you, Lai ? Can you get off from your studies in time ?" " Oh, yes ; I shall be through by five o'clock ; I have no music lesson to-day, and I shall be glad to go." 4 Then good-by," continued Moultrie, kissing them both. " Don't worry over the Controller and the Aven- ger. You'd make short work of these editors, Lai," he went on, stroking her hair and smiling lovingly as he looked at her. " You'd be more than a match for MISS BILLY'S BOMBSHELL. either of them, for they are both puny little fel- lows. " " I think I would like to kill them both," said Lai, indignantly. " Yes," he answered, " you look as though you were quite capable of doing it, too." " I have not felt so angry since I came East. I often used to talk of killing people when I lived in Colorado, before before you came," she went on, throwing her arms around his neck as she spoke. "It is wrong, I know, to say such things, and you will forgive me, will you not, dear father ?" "I don't think that will be very difficult," he an- swered, kissing her forehead. " By the by, Theodora," he continued, turning to his wife, who stood by his side, " we must try and get Lai into a more colloquial way of talk- ing, though I must confess I like her formal manner of expressing herself. It seems to me very pretty and very quaint." " Then if you like it I will never change !" exclaimed Lai. " But it sounds so foreign, my dear," said Theodora. " No one says ' I do not,' ' I will not,' ' 1 cannot,' and so on in ordinary conversation ; but they say ( I don't, ' 1 1 won't,' I can't,' and use other contracted forms. Still, I think with your father that it is rather pretty, and cer- tainly no one can find fault with it on the score of incor- rectness. You have done so much, dear, in the time you have been with us, that I think we ought to let you alone with your speech." " You shall talk just as you please," said Moultrie, as he left the room. " She has done wonders," he thought to himself, as he put on his overcoat. u No one but an 86 A STKONG-MINDED WOMAN. American could have gotten rid of a dialect in so short a time, and some people the Scotch and English, for ex- ample never part with their peculiarities of early speech, though they try ever so hard. I have heard lord- mayors and baronets yes, even peers who dropped their hs after fifty years' intercourse with genteel society ; and where is the provincial Englishman or Scotchman who ever gives up the accent or pronunciation of his youth ? An American, however, loses all his local peculiarities whenever he sets to work deliberately to do so, and Lai has scarcely one left, after only two years' efforts. She has worked faithfully and intelligently, and when Tys- covus comes for her she will be a wife of whom he will never have cause to be ashamed. But how can 1 ever let her go?" He had asked himself this question at least a hun- dred times during the last year, and had never given it a satisfactory answer. He could not bear to con- template the inevitable day which, little by little, came nearer that day on which his friend would appear to take her away from him forever, and on which she would go with one she loved better than she loved him. There was a pang at the thought that cut him to the very heart. He sighed deeply as he left the house on his walk down- town to his office. It was his way of taking active ex- ercise, and he never neglected this walk, no matter what kind of weather he had to contend with. To-day he assumed a quick pace, for he had work to do, and he was a little behind his usual time. Meanwhile Theodora and Lalage went about their usual morning's work. The course of instruction that Moultrie and Theodora had laid out for Lalage was based upon as much good MISS BILLY'S BOMBSHELL. 87 common-sense as is usually possessed by men and women. They recognized the fact that when she came under their charge she was almost entirely ignorant of the very rudiments of learning. She could read imperfectly, could write a little, and knew something of the elemen- tary rules of arithmetic, and this was all. She had never received any instruction, but had taught herself the little she knew. But they saw that she was remarkably quick of apprehension, and that her brain worked easily and smoothly. They perceived that her mind was a remark- ably well-balanced one, and that she was not a girl to take eccentric notions, and to form an overwhelming idea of her own competence to direct herself in the roads to the acquisition of learning. She had, in fact, that best of all ground- work upon which education can be built a knowledge of her own ignorance, and a willingness to be guided by others. There were but two years more that she would be under their care, and then she would go to Tyscovus as his wife. What was to be done, there- fore, must be done quickly, and every circumstance capa- ble of influencing the result must be brought into action. There was no faltering on her part. Her whole soul was wrapped up in her work. The pleasures of society were eschewed. She went to no theatres or other places of amusement, beyond an occasional concert ; not be- cause of the time they occupied, but because they di- verted her mind from pursuits that would in the end be of more advantage to her. In this, perhaps, she was not altogether wise ; but as she then felt, amusements of the kind in question would really have been no amusement to her. She would have been reproaching herself con- tinually with the idea that every moment spent in them was lost time. A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. But she did not neglect the needs of her body while laboring so diligently to improve her mind. She walked or rode horseback for an hour every morning before taking any other breakfast than a cup of coffee and a piece of dry toast, and usually drove in the Park with her father and mother for a little period every after- noon. She thus not only strengthened her physical system, but incidentally provided for mental diversion. Of a mild kind, it is true, yet powerful enough to allow her brain to recuperate and start off with more than its usual vigor when she again set it to doing the special work laid out for it. There were no chemistry, philosophy, physiology, French, German, or other higher branch of knowledge, so much affected by young women of the present day, who cannot write ten lines correctly, and who are hopelessly ignorant of the history and geography of their own coun- try. Her education was conducted on an entirely differ- ent basis from that of Florence Sincote, and her teacher was not a man, but a woman who had been brought up amid refined surroundings, and who had no high-flown notions about the identity of the sexes and the conse- quent necessity of forcing a young woman's mind to take the same course a's that of a boy destined to be a civil or mechanical engineer. She was taught to spell and to read correctly. Grammar was given her by prac- tical examples, not by books. No one, her father and mother knew, ever yet learned to speak good English from studying books on grammar. When she spoke, if she spoke incorrectly she was at once set right, but never unless she was at the time receiving instruction. Upon this point Moultrie was very decided. "If we correct her," he had said, " every time she opens her MISS BILLY'S BOMBSHELL. 89 mouth to speak and makes a mistake, her life will be a burden to her, and ours to us." Of ten he and Theodora conversed with her relative to her work of the day, and after dinner he always gave her a ' ( talk, "as he called it, on American history, or described the various cities and countries he had visited, or related the adventures he had had. She was encouraged to ask questions and to express her opinions upon all subjects that were dis- cussed in her presence. Geography and the physics of the universe, so far as they could be taught without infringing on the domain of the higher mathematics, were among the most thor- oughly considered of all her studies. Books of travel contributed to her assistance, and the reading of them gave her the familiarity with the English language in its best forms, which it was desirable she should possess. Then the indoctrination of the first principles of num- bers almost completed the work that her own teacher, Mrs. Bowdoin, a widow, had to do. It was not much all told, but what there was of it was well and thoroughly done. And there was one thing more music and to that an hour in the morning was given. She had a full, rich and sympathetic contralto voice and a correct ear. Her progress in this direction had been marvellous, so much so that Mr. Ricci, her teacher, declared that she was almost, if not altogether, a musical genius. This morning she went into a little apartment adjoin- ing her bedroom, that had been specially fitted up as a sitting-room for her, and in which she received her teacher. It was not large, but it was the embodiment of everything that could contribute to her convenience and comfort. In a few minutes Mrs. Bowdoin arrived, and then, with an intermission of half an hour, at one 90 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. o'clock, for luncheon they would be hard at work together till three. After that there was no more teaching of that kind for the day. Theodora had gone about her household duties, which always took an hour every morn- ing, and was engaged with the housekeeper when a ser- vant announced that a lady was waiting in the reception- room. " Is she a visitor ?" inquired Theodora, quite satisfied that it was too early in the morning for any but a busi- ness visit, unless from one of her intimate friends, who might call unceremoniously. " No, madame," said Frangois, who was acquainted with Theodora's visiting-list almost as well as she was herself ; " I zink see came on beesness." ' ' Then ask her to please send me her name, and to let me know what she wishes." " Yes, madame." In a few moments Frangois was back. " See zay, madame, zat madame would not know ze name, and zat her beesness is wit madame seule onlee ; very important. ' ' " Does she look like a lady ?" Frangois shrugged his shoulders. " See come in a carriage, see vear ze fine clothes ; mais, but lady ! Ah madame ! madame vill know." " I suppose I shall have to leave you for a few min- utes," said Theodora to the housekeeper. " None of us will be home to dinner to-day, but Miss Lalage and 1 will take a cup of tea at four o'clock. Show her into the library, Frangois," she continued ; " I will see her in a moment." She followed the man so speedily that the visitor had scarcely time to be seated before Theodora was in the 91 room. " You wish to see me on business?" she in- quired, with just that amount of hauteur that would have been sufficient to keep a well-bred woman at a proper distance, and without again asking the name of her visitor. u I do," with atone of mingled superiority and indig- nation, that showed that whatever her business was, it was of such a character as to cause her to feel her power, and at the same time excite a corresponding amount of anger in her breast. Then Theodora looked at her, an act which she had as yet scarcely done, except in a very general and superficial way. She saw before her a low, broad young woman, who looked, owing to the shortness of her legs, as though she might be taller as she sat down than when she stood up. She had a flat, wide face, somewhat Eskimoish in shape, and little washed-out blue eyes, that looked as expressionless although she was inwardly torn with contending emotions as though they were two leaden bullets. She was very much overdressed in light blue plush, and had large diamond earrings in her floppy ears, which appendages stood out like two big wings from the side of her head. Need it be said that she was our acquaintance of the night before, Miss Billy Bremen ? Theodora's first idea was that her visitor was some one desiring a subscription to a charitable object, or perhaps a book-agent. But one comprehensive glance, such as she knew as well how to give as any woman in the world, was sufficient to dispel this idea. She had never yet seen a book-agent with diamond earrings worth three or four thousand dollars, and her manner was altogether too self-assertive to be that of any one wanting a favor. 92 A STRONG- MIKDED WOMAN. She felt a little amused at the woman's bearing, but she nevertheless had no time to waste upon her, and so de- termined to get rid of her as soon as possible. " Perhaps you will be good enough to tell me what it is." " Don't you want to know my name first, Mrs. Moul- trie?" " It is scarcely necessary, I think. I would rather, if you please, know your business." " Yery well ! You'll know it soon enough, I guess. But I'll tell you my name, whether you want to hear it or not. I'm Miss Billy Bremen, the daughter of the late Johann Bremen, Esq. , and I own the large abattoir at Locust Point." Notwithstanding this insolent speech, delivered in Miss Billy's most majestic manner, with the usual accompani- ment of a livid face, Theodora maintained her compo- sure, and her visitor continued : " You lived in Colorado once, 1 believe ?" "Yes." " At a place called Hellbender ?" Theodora nodded. " And not far from another place called The Canon ?" Another nod. " There were two gentlemen living there or near there named James Bosler and Luke Kittle ?' ' Theodora could not allow this form of the question to go unnoticed. " There were two persons there highly disreputable characters of those names," she answered. " My information in regard to them," said Miss Billy, bridling up and becoming still more purplish in her com- plexion, "is very different quite the reverse, I assure you and I'm not in the habit of lying. I happen to MISS BILLY'S BOMBSHELL. 93 have a friend living at The Canon, and I am told by him in a letter, which I got yesterday morning, that Mr. Bosler was a man of family, a dealer in horses, with a wife, a highly educated lady, and a daughter. The wife is dead, but the daughter is, I understand, still liv- ing." As she uttered these last words Miss Billy fixed her gaze on Theodora, as though she would pierce her through with her glittering eye ; but the eye, or the pair of them, refused to glitter, and only a dull glare was the result. "It is scarcely worth while, I think, to discuss the character of these men. They are nothing to me." " Oh, you think so, do you ? Well, we'll see about that further on. Do you know what became of them?" " They w r ere hanged for murder." " According to law, I suppose, after due trial and conviction in a court of justice ?" Theodora could not help smiling at the turn the con- versation was taking. Then suddenly the idea struck her that this woman might be a relative of one or both of the men whose names had thus been brought to her mind long after she had, as she thought, dismissed them from her memory, and a feeling of delicacy caused her to give a different answer from the one Miss Billy would otherwise have received. So she observed : " There was not much law in the Territory at that time. They were hanged by the Vigilance Committee, after due inquiry into all the circumstances of the various charges against them. Of course it was not right, but the act was, I believe, approved by the people." " Oh, you admit, then, that it was wrong ! Well, Mrs. Moultrie, do you happen to know who were the 94 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. men on the Vigilance Committee that perpetrated those two murders ?" u I have not the slightest idea." " You don't know, then, who the leader was ?" "No." " The man who commanded the party and who acted as judge condemning them to death ?" " I have not the slightest knowledge on the subject." " I will tell you, then. But, first of all, I wish to say that I am a member of the committee of the < United Women of America ' so grossly insulted by your husband last night." " My husband does not insult women, no matter who or what they may be." " You used to be interested in the woman question, but you don't seem to care for it now," said Miss Billy, not noticing the denial. " We are not talking of my views. You accused my husband of insulting women, and I told you it was not true. I think this interview has gone quite far enough." " There I beg leave to differ from you," resumed Miss Billy, rising from the chair and approaching Theo- dora. " You said just now that you did not know who was the leader that murdered those two poor gentlemen in cold blood. If you were telling me the truth you'll be considerably astonished, I guess. It was your hus- band ! He hanged the one because he wanted the poor gentleman's only daughter ; and he hanged the other, who was a prominent man and a candidate for the Leg- islature, because he had a friend he wanted elected, and he thought that would be a good way to make room for him. Now, Mrs. Moultrie, what do you think of that ?" Before she had finished this speech Theodora had risen MISS BILLY'S BOMBSHELL. 95 to her feet and had rung the bell. But ere it could be answered Miss Billy had time to say a few additional words. " Yes, it's true, every word of it, and I've had it type- written the whole story twelve copies, and to- morrow it will be published in every newspaper in the city of New York, and " " Show that woman to the door," interrupted Theo- dora, as Francois made his appearance ; " and if she re- fuses to go, or attempts to enter the house again, summon a policeman." Then, without looking at Miss Billy, who continued to talk in such an excited manner that she was incoherent, she left the room, leaving her visitor ,the empty advantage of being mistress of the field. For a moment Miss Billy was at a loss to determine whether she had or had not gained a victory. Francois stood in the doorway, waiting, with a marvellous degree of patience, to obey his orders, and she had very little time then for deliberation, even had she been in a frame of mind suitable for the operation of mental concentration and judgment. That her blow had produced some effect she could not fail to perceive, but that it was of the character she had expected was more doubtful. That, however, was a matter which time alone could fully determine. That she had Moultrie in her power she fully believed, and that she could defeat his election she felt quite sure. She began, however, to have a vague idea that it would have been better had she conducted herself with more decorum, and have communicated her information with an air that had more of sorrow than of anger. Perhaps, too, it might have served her purpose to more advantage had she revealed her knowledge to Moultrie direct, and tried to make terms with him. It 96 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. was too late now, however, to undo what had been done. She looked up. Francois was still standing in the door- way. He was actually beckoning to her. There was nothing to do but to follow him to the front door, with the consciousness that she had been actually turned out of the house, and threatened with a policeman, and the second time in twenty-four hours ; but, nevertheless, feeling her paltry little soul swell with the thought of her anticipated triumph. She was sorry she could not have gotten in more about the meeting. Something in regard to Rachel being in love with Moultrie would doubtless, she imagined, have stuck an additional thorn into Theodora's flesh, which, although it might have been promptly extracted, would have left a festering sore for some time to come. Still, on the whole, she was not unsatisfied. CHAPTER YL DOUBTS ARE DISSIPATED. THEODOBA went to her room, and throwing herself into a large arm-chair that stood in front of the sea-coal tire, tried to compose her mind so as to think calmly of the interview through which she had just passed, as well as of its antecedents and its possible consequences. Al- though she had borne herself in Miss Billy Bremen's presence with her accustomed dignity in trying or em- barrassing situations, there was no denying the fact that the information that the lady had communicated had greatly unsettled her. She called to mind as well as she could the circumstances which, over a year ago, had attended the action of the Vigilance Committee in the cases of Messrs. Jim Bosler and Luke Kittle. She re- membered how her father, Dr. Willis, who had been the head of the organization, which numbered among its members the best citizens of the locality, had been in- duced through her entreaties and the arguments of Tyscovus not only to resign the presidency, but to retire altogether from the association. She knew very well what lawless individuals the two men were upon whom the Vigilance Committee had visited the punishment which the law was incompetent to inflict ; that Bosler had only a short time before wantonly killed an inoffen- sive man, the eleventh of a series of murders he had committed in Colorado, and that Kittle, almost as vile a 98 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. character as the other, had deliberately planned the death of a man whose existence was obnoxious to him, and had carried out his conception in the very town in which she lived. She also knew that there was general rejoicing in the Territory over the double execution that the Vigilance Committee had effected ; that meetings had been held and congratulatory resolutions passed, and that the press of the Territory, without, so far as she knew, a single exception, had justified the action as in every way commendable. Still, she had always, while to some extent admitting the propriety of the course taken by the people to rid themselves of two desperadoes, recog- nized the fact that in the eye of the law the executions were deliberate murders, and that although the regular administrators of justice might have been incapable or indisposed to act against the members of the committee, just as they had always been incapable of proceeding against Bosler and Kittle, it had nevertheless been their duty to ferret out the perpetrators and to bring them to trial. She remembered, too, how glad she had been that her father had left the committee before the hanging of the two men. And now she was told that her own husband, the one in all the world most dear to her, whose whole mind was, she thought, trained in the paths of justice, and truth, and uprightness, whithersoever they led, had not only been the leader of the committee on that eventful night, but had sat in judgment on those men, had condemned them to death, and had ordered their execution. Was it all true ? Had this woman, for some nefarious purpose of her own, come to her with these lies upon her lips ? That she was malicious and unscrupulous was very certain ; that she had misrepresented the characters of the two scoundrel? DOUBTS ABE DISSIPATED. 99 was unquestionable. These were matters of very little consequence to Theodora. Had she uttered a falsehood when she declared that Geoffrey Moultrie had sent those men to their death ? That was the question that concerned her. For, if true, not only had he, in her opinion, com- mitted a grievous wrong, but he had, by keeping her in ignorance of his act, been disloyal to her, his wife, whose inmost thoughts had always been open to him. She sat with her hands covering her face, while every now and then a tear dropped from between her closed fingers. She tried to believe that the woman had lied. At one moment she had almost fully persuaded herself that it was a falsehood, just as was the assertion that Moultrie had insulted the women at the meeting. But the merciless logic of circumstances soon came to brush away the flimsy wall she had set up against being con- vinced, and she brought to mind many events that went to show that what the woman had said was true. She remembered the night on which Bosler and Kittle were hung. Moultrie was staying at her father's house at the time. All that day there had been many persons calling to see him. He had announced that business would take him away early in the evening, and that he should probably be absent all night. He did not tell her what his business was, but at eight o'clock he had left the house, with a large army-revolver buckled around his waist. She did not see him again for several days, and then he was with Tyscovus on the butte. He had found his daughter she who for many years had been supposed to be Bosler' s child. But the night on which he had left Chetolah, Bo&ler and Kittle were hanged to the giant pine-tree that stood half-way up the butte. She had never asked him for the details of his adventures, 100 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. and he had never volunteered any information on the subject, beyond the fact that Lai had escaped from Bos- ler's cabin at Bighorn Spring after her reputed father had informed her of his intention to marry her to Luke Kittle, had taken refuge with Tyscovus on the butte, and had there been found by her real father. Since then the hanging of the men had often been the subject of conversation between her and her husband, but he had never by one single word intimated that he had had anything whatever to do with the deed. If he had been the leader of the committee, the judge, the executioner, he had not taken her into his confidence, but had, by his silence, left the fact to corne to her knowledge by the mouth of a vulgar woman, who had insulted her in her own house, and had left it with threats of vengeance. Was it possible that he would wilfully keep her in ignorance of an act of his life second to none other in importance, and which so nearly con- cerned a member of her household, his own daughter ? Ah ! if it were true, then indeed had her idol fallen from the lofty height on which she had placed him. She might forgive him the act. She remembered that her own father had held the position which she had now been told her husband had occupied ; she recalled to mind the fact that she herself had looked with leniency upon the doings of vigilance committees, which, though unlawful, were nevertheless in the interests of law and order. But all that was before their deeds had been brought home to her by the knowledge that her own husband had been the chief actor in an illegal execution. It was a shock to her. It would have distressed her had he himself told her of the part he had taken, but she would have condoned it yes, and much more anything, in DOUBTS AKE DISSIPATED. 101 fact, that lie could have done, whether against the laws of God or man, if he himself had whispered in her ear the story of his sin or crime. But to have lived for more than two years under his roof, to have had his lips press hers, to have lain upon his breast, and to have listened to the beating of a heart that she had thought was open* to her in all its inmost recesses, and then to find that she, his wife, had been shut out from all knowledge of a secret that was known to a low-minded person, such as was this Bremen woman, and which by to-morrow would be the town talk this was gall and wormwood to her. It was a sin and a crime both not one only ; one sin, one crime she could have forgiven but repeated every moment of their two lives since she had been his wife. Yes, that very morning he had kissed her, and spoken words of love to her, and with a smile upon his face, as though she were all in all to him, while at the very time there had been treason in his heart. That she felt she could never forgive. She raised her eyes, and looked at the Sevres porcelain clock that stood on the mantel -piece before her. It was nearly eleven o'clock. The woman had made threats against her husband of which it was her duty to warn him ; and then, though she saw no loop-hole through which to escape from the conviction that she had been told the truth relative to his connection with the hang- ing of Bosler and Kittle, she could not rest till she had had the confirmation or denial from his own lips. He had never lied to her of that she felt he was incapable and even in his refusal to give her his confidence there was no dishonor. There might be something he would say that would take from this act all its sting, and then ah, yes ! then she would forgive him. 102 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. She went into her boudoir adjoining, and sat down at her desk to write him a note, requesting him to return to the house immediately, as matters of great importance required his immediate presence. His photograph, taken just after their marriage, stood on a little easel before her. She stopped writing to look at it ; and as she looked, all her past married life came in rapid review be- fore her. It seemed to her as though she saw with super- natural power every act of love and kindness that he had ever done her. His brave, manly, straightforward life was all before her. She recalled how he had made for himself a name that all the world honored ; how moun- tains, and deserts, and rivers had yielded before his well- directed energy and power ; how in all the trying situa- tions in which he had been placed in all his successes, in all his misfortunes he had borne himself before all men with honor and courage, and that his name was a tower of strength to anything with which he was connected. And she for one fault, which, perhaps, was not a fault, had said in her heart that she could never forgive him, and this without hearing a word from him. " My God ! what was I about to do ?' ' she exclaimed aloud. c * My pride has blinded me my selfish pride. Oh, my love ! my love ! it is I who am disloyal." She pressed her lips to the photograph as she spoke, and then throwing down her pen and closing her desk, rang the bell. " Order my coupe immediately," she said to her maid. Then she put on her hat and shawl, and went to Lalage's room. "I am going down-town to see your father," she said. "Something has occurred that requires his immediate attention. Have you any message for him ?" Lalage looked up from the book she was reading, and on which Mrs. Bowdoin was making comments in the DOUBTS ARE DISSIPATED. 103 nature of explanations and amplifications. She noticed the slightly agitated manner which not even Theodora, with all her self-control, could altogether subdue, and a little feeling of alarm arose. 4 ( It is nothing much," said Theodora, observing the expression in Lalage's face, " only something about the election that requires to be looked after at once, and and " she added, hesitatingly, " concerning those two men, Bosler and Kittle, who " Lalage's face became pallid, and she staggered as though she would have fallen to the floor. She man- aged, however, to recover her composure for Theo- dora had stopped speaking on seeing the effect produced upon the girl and to say, " Have they been heard from?" " Heard from !" exclaimed Theodora. " Why, don't you know what became of them ?" " I only know that they got away from the Yigilance Committee. I never heard anything more, and 1 was always afraid to ask. ' ' Then he had not even told his daughter, thought Theodora. She thanked God that no other person, at any rate, had been his confidant. Yes, he must have had good reasons for keeping the matter secret from both ; but it was not for her to reveal the truth. " Oh, no," she said, with as much coolness as she could command, and with the intention of relieving Lalage's fears, " there is no fear of their ever coming back ! They will never show their faces again to any of us." Then she called to mind the fact that Lai was Geoffrey's daughter, and she put her arm around the girl's neck and kissed her. " I don't believe you half know how much I love you, dear," she continued. " You be- 104 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. long to him, and everything that is his is mine. Good- by ; I'll give your love to him, and tell him I found you hard at work." Then with a smile and a nod to Mrs. Bowdoin, she was gone. Her coupe was at the door. The footman touched his hat as she crossed the sidewalk. " To Mr. Moultrie's office," she said, as she stepped into the carriage. She felt that every moment was of value. " And tell John to drive fast," she added. " Somethin's up, John," said the man, in a low tone, as he mounted the box, " and you're to drive like the devil." ".All right!" answered the coachman; "like the devil she goes, then. But what do you think it is, Joey ? I don't think the madam's been down to the office for more'n a year. " " Well, I don't know ; I ain't in her secrets, you see. But there's Frenchy, he'll know all about it. Them dinin'-room fellows has got the start on us." " Yes, that's true ; but then, Joey, we knows where they go, and that's a good deal with some on 'em." " "Well, it ain't much with these 'ere swells, 'cause, you see, they don't go nowhere out o' the way." Down Fifth Avenue they went, and then down Broad- way as rapidly as the crowded state of that thoroughfare would permit. " I think it's the 'lection, Joey," said John at last, after a silence of several minutes, during which whatever brain- work he could divert from the task before him of guiding his horses had been given to the solution of the problem that had suggested itself to his mind. " Did you read them sintiments in the Avenger this mornin' ? DOUBTS ARE DISSIPATED. 105 I tell you that they went for the boss like a thousand o' brick." " Did I read 'em !" answered Joey, with a tone of offended dignity. " Why, ain't I one o' O'Leary's com- mittee in this 'ere precink ! Or in the one where he lives," he continued, remembering that he had travelled several miles from Moultrie's stable, in which he had his legal residence. " There ain't much as goes into that paper as I don't see. It did give the boss perticler fits. But Lord bless you ! he don't care nothin' for Mike Flanigan nor his paper, neither. I wish I could a' seen him a-layin' out them women ! 1 don't believe he left a grease-spot of 'em. As to the madam, I shouldn't wonder if you was right about the 'lection. She's just as much into it as if she was a-runnin' for Congress as well as her husband. It's somethin' mighty strong, or you wouldn't see her goin' down-town at this time o' day." " And there ain't no way as we can find out, 'cept from Frenchy, and he's just about as likely to get things mixed as not," said John, with an accent of regret. "I'll bet a dollar it's a mighty big thing as takes the madam down-town to-day. She's in an awful hurry." " I say, Joey, ain't you goin' to vote for the boss ?" he remarked, after another five minutes' silence. " John, if I tell you a secret don't you never breathe it to a livin' soul." "I'm mum, Joey ; never a word passes my lips." " Well, I'm goin' to vote for the old man. He's always treated me fair, and I'm goin' for him ; but it wouldn't do to let the boys know as I scratched O'Leary." " I'll shake your hand, Joey, for that when I get rid 106 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. o' these reins. I'm goin' for the boss, too, though he's runnin' agin' Jackson, the riglar nominee. He's a square man, is the boss, and he's goin' to get my vote as sure as you're born." Just then the carriage turned into Wall Street, and in a minute or two stopped at Moultrie's office, nearly op- posite the Custom House. In an instant " Joey" was off the box and the door opened. Theodora waited be- fore getting out till the man, whom she sent at once on the errand, returned to say whether Moultrie was in or not. She did not have long to wait, for Moultrie him- self came out. " Is anything the matter?" he said, with a shade of anxiety in his voice and look. " Nothing very special, but yet something of sufficient importance to require you to be informed of it at once." " Then you had better get out, as we can talk more at ease in my room. Come !" She gave him her hand, and he escorted her into his apartments. " Now, dear," he said, as he placed her in a comfort- able chair in his private room before a cheerful fire, while he stood leaning against the mantel-piece, "I must first thank you for taking the trouble to come all the way down here to tell me in person this important piece of news." " Yes, I think it is important. I had a visit this morning from a woman calling herself Miss Billy Bremen." "Ah! she is one of the committee I am accused of insulting." " The same. She came to tell me that she had infor- mation in regard to you that she was about to publish, and which, when known, would defeat your election to Congress." DOUBTS AEE DISSIPATED. 107 " She overestimates its importance. There is nothing I have ever done that would lose me one vote. There is one thing that I regret, but the publication of that would gain me a thousand votes more than I would otherwise get ; for the world at large would look on it in a different light from that in which I see it. I have never told it to you, my darling, because I have been ashamed of the part I took, and I feared yes, without cause I know now," as Theodora, rising from her chair, threw herself into his arms, " that you might think me a little less worthy of all your love." " 1 know it all, Geoffrey. That woman told me." " Ah, well," he said, with a little sadness in his tone, as he pressed her head against his breast, " it was not so much the deed that was wrong as were the motives that led me to do it. When it was suggested to me, in the first place, that I should take the command of the Viligance Committee that had been organized for the purpose of ridding the Territory of desperate characters whose crimes had terrified the people, and whom the law was powerless to reach, 1 declined, because my heart was not in the work, and I really disapproved of the method of procedure contemplated. When I was told that one of the men to be seized, tried, and executed was the wretch who had stolen my child and had been the cause of my wife's insanity and death, I reconsidered my determina- tion, and accepted the leadership that had been offered me. Herein was my wrong : that which 1 was unwilling to do for the good of the public I undertook from motives of personal vengeance. The hanging of those men was a righteous act, but it was a sin for me to be the one to condemn them to death. " I soon became aware of this for at first, led away 108 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. by the sense of the wrongs 1 had endured, I did not per- ceive it and then, knowing your own high standard of right, I feared to tell you what I had done, lest you should see in me some one lower than the ideal you had con- ceived. That is all." He ceased speaking, but she made no response, though he could feel her form trembling in his embrace. Almost imperceptibly his arms clasped less strongly. Did she really condemn him ? he asked himself. He had not spared himself in the confession he had made ; he had appealed to feelings that are supposed to reside to some extent in every woman's heart, but she had been silent. For a moment it seemed to him as though he had lost her forever, for he was one of those men with whom it must be everything or nothing. It was not, he thought, a case for argument, but yet he felt as though he must make one last effort to bring her heart back to him. " For nearly seventeen years," he continued, " I had suffered agonies which, fortunately for mankind, few are called upon to endure. The certainty of the death of my child would have been a relief, but that certainty was denied me. Night after night I had lain awake or had paced the floor, thinking of her who was lost to me, and haunted by visions of what might be her fate. On the arid plains of Russia, amid the snows of the Andes, the image I had formed of her was ever before me. Then, when I had abandoned all hope, I was told that my child was found, and that the wretch who had brought all this sorrow upon me was within my reach. If, in the fulness of my joy, I yielded to the feeling that, for good or evil, is in every man's breast, and did that which in calmer moments I perceived was arrogating DOUBTS AEE DISSIPATED. 109 to myself powers* that belong to God, it seems to me that" 4 ' You would have been only a little less than divine to have resisted !" exclaimed Theodora, raising her face and throwing her arms around his neck. " Yes, it was wrong," she continued, " but it was human, and I really think now I should have loved you less had you allowed the men to escape. But I was not silent from any doubt as to how I should act toward you," she continued, as he kissed her again and again, " but because I felt I had been unjust to you, and my mind was full of self- reproaches. When 1 reflected," she went on, after a pause, and moved by that frankness that was one of the most charming traits of her character, u upon what that woman told me, I was at first overcome with sur- prise, and my pride was piqued that you had kept the matter secret from me. That, I think, caused me to see but one side of the question, and for a moment I felt as though I had suffered a great injury, and that you had committed a serious crime. But it was only for a mo- ment, and I came here confident that you would dispel every cloud from my mind. But never be again afraid of testing my love. If you were to kill fifty men you would still be dear to me." "I suppose that is a very womanly expression," he said, smiling, " but I don't propose to test your love to that extent, though I shall not in future refuse to put it on trial, should occasion require. I have never told Lai of my part in the hanging of the men. Indeed, she does not even know that they are dead. But here, I think, I had more justification for silence than I had with you, for you know that, notwithstanding Bosler's bad treat- ment of her at the last, he had, as she said, been kind to 110 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. her after his way for many years, and* she is not one to forget such things. She cannot, however, learn the truth more appropriately from any one than from me, and I shall take an early opportunity of telling her all. I am only sorry that your knowledge should have come from Miss Billy Bremen instead of from your husband." " But don't you think, dear, that something should be done to counteract any steps to injure you that she may take ? Depend upon it, the statement she will make public will be full of lies from beginning to end. ' ' Moultrie thought for a moment, and then answered in a tone of decision, " Yes, and I think we shall take the wind out of her sails. I shall at once prepare and send to the evening newspapers a full statement of the whole affair, or rather I shall request the editor of each of the three principal evening papers to send an interviewing reporter to me at once. That will be better. The account will be copied by the morning papers, so that Miss Billy will find her news partaking somewhat of the character of ancient history. " He went to a table and hurriedly wrote three notes. Then he rang a bell, and told the man who answered to take them at once to the offices of the papers to which they were directed. " Now," he continued, "I shall telegraph to the Governor of Colorado and request him to send me a statement in regard to the characters of Bosler and Kittle and the feeling in the Territory rela- tive to the propriety and necessity of the course of the Vigilance Committee ; and also to state what action was taken by the legislature concerning the matter at its session a few weeks subsequently. Although 1 cannot get an answer in time for this evening's papers, it will arrive in ample season for those of to-morrow morning." DOUBTS AEE DISSIPATED. Ill While Moultrie was speaking and arranging his plans for the circumvention of Miss Billy Bremen's schemes, Theodora's face wore an expression of intense satisfac- tion. Here, indeed, she thought was a man of whom she might be proud to be the wife. Without the least sign of annoyance, still less of fear, he had at once taken in all the possibilities of the situation, and had arranged his plan of action with a boldness that excited her warmest admiration. She saw at once how completely he would neutralize the designs of his enemies by the measures that he proposed taking. Indeed, as he had said, there was no doubt that the facts of his connection with the Vigilance Committee would be regarded as being to his advantage rather than to his detriment, and would increase his vote several hundred above that which he would otherwise receive. When he had finished she prepared to take her leave. " I am so glad 1 came down," she said. " It is such a pleasure to me to be of any service to you, and this time 1 have helped you a little, haven't 1 ?" He took her face between his hands and kissed her. " You have not only rendered me a great service, but you have done still more for me by giving me your love and causing me to understand that nothing I am likely to do will make me lose it. ' ' 11 No, nothing," she answered, smiling, " not even your refusal to advocate woman's rights in Congress. But I had almost forgotten," she continued, drawing, as she spoke, a letter from her pocket. " Just after you left the house this morning a messenger brought me this communication, and 1 want your advice as to what an- swer to give." She handed him the letter, and he read as follows : 112 A STKONG-MLNDED WOMAN. " 7 WEST -TH STREET, NEW YOKK, ) November 4, 1874. i "DEAK MADAM: I am directed by the Board of Trustees of the ' Martha Washington Medical College for Women ' to notify you that at a meeting held this evening you were unanimously elected a member of the Board. " I am also instructed to inform you that you were at the same time, and by a like vote, appointed Professor of Physiology in the College. u In thus endeavoring to secure your valuable services to the institution under its charge, the Board hopes it is acting in accordance with your wishes, and that it may look for an acceptance of both positions. " I am, madam, with great regard, 1 1 Your obedient servant, " RACHEL MEADOWS, Secretary." " Why, that's the young lady who spoke last night at the meeting, and whom I am accused of insulting !' ' ex- claimed Moultrie. " Well, my dear, to use a slang ex- pression, ' What are you going to do about it ?' " " That is for you to say," she answered. " No wife has the right to undertake any public work or duty of any kind without her husband's consent. The first thing she has to consider is its possible effect upon him. ' ' " Perhaps you are right, generally speaking ; at any rate, it is very kind of you to think so. But I should feel like a tyrant were I to interfere with you in such a matter as this. I see there are two appointments. In regard to the trusteeship, 1 should think there could be no doubt relative to the propriety of your acceptance, pro- vided only that your associates are ladies. Do you hap- pen to know who they are ?" DOUBTS AEE DISSIPATED. 113 " Yes ; an announcement of the college came with the letter. I did not bring it with me, but I looked over it and examined the list of officers. Among the trustees are Mrs. Gosford, Mrs. Fay, Mrs. Darby, Miss Oxworth, and Miss Meadows, the secretary. They are all ladies of good position, and several of them are acquaintances." " Then we will regard that part of the proposition as settled by your acceptance, provided it is entirely agree- able to you. The other part is more important, for it is a position that involves publicity and great responsibility, and the assumption of which by you will immediately cause more or less friendly and unfriendly comment among your acquaintances all of which requires con- sideration. Are you prepared to give an answer now ?" " Yes, as fully as 1 ever shall be." " Do you feel competent to tackle the subject ?" "Yes." "Now, my dear child," he continued, "I am per- fectly free to say that your acceptance of this appointment would not interfere in the slightest degree with me or any of my plans. Neither would it offend my sense of what is right for my wife to do. When 1 married you I knew what the course of your studies had been, and I saw that you were correct in the opinion that you once expressed to me, that there is nothing incompatible be- tween anatomical and physiological studies and the most bewitching womanly delicacy. Well, my darling, a married life of over two years has not taught me differ- ently. You are still to me the sweetest woman the sun ever shone upon, and I do not believe you will be any the less tender and fascinating as a professor of physiology than as plain Theodora Moultrie. " " Oh, Geoffrey, how good you are !" cried Theodora, 114 A STKONG-MINDED WOMA-N. her lovely face beaming with the pleasure his words pro- duced. "And am I all that to you?" she continued. " I never would have believed it if you had not told me. So you advise me to accept the professorship ?" " Ah, my dear !'' he exclaimed, laughing, " I did not say that. Advice and approval are two very different things. I shall be most pleased at your doing that which pleases you best. It is a selfish feeling with me, I admit. I wish to see you happy. I perceive how strong a hold your studies have upon you ; therefore, when you tell me that you feel competent to teach physiology to women, and that you would like to do it, 1 find my hap- piness in giving my consent." " And would you like it better if I declined ? Oh, Geoffrey, I do so want to please you ! Suppose," she continued, as she made him sit down, while she placed herself on his knee, and put one arm around his neck " suppose I were to tell you that I did not care to take this appointment, would you be better pleased than you are now, that you think I wish to accept it ? Oh, my love, tell me what you wish me to do without regard to me !" " You little witch, you would seduce the very elect, I do believe. Have I not told you, dear ?" " Yes ; but you must answer my question." " Well, I will. If you were to tell me that you did not care to accept the professorship, you would make me very unhappy." " Why ?" 4 ' Because I should feel that you were telling me what was not true in order to please me." " You think, then, that I am anxious to take the place ?" DOUBTS ABE DISSIPATED. 115 " Yes ; I know you are." " You are right," she said, gravely, after a moment's pause. " I am anxious ; but you will believe me, Geof- frey, when I say to you, as I do now in the sight of God, and with my heart beating against yours, that I would take more pleasure in acting according to your wish than in doing anything else in all the world." " I do believe you, dear ; but woman is ever ready to sacrifice herself for the man she loves, and to take pleasure in the act. Generally, he is willing enough to accept the immolation. It assures him of her love, and gratifies his vanity at the same time. Now, I need no such proof of your affection, and shall I tell you ? I am vainer of your knowledge and your good sense than I am of any qualities of mine that cause you to love me. Therefore, you will please me best by accepting the pro- fessorship tendered you ; and I here pledge you my hearty support, and promise you that no word of mine shall ever reproach you." " Oh, Geoffrey, are you sure of all that ?" " Quite sure, dear. If you were to decline, you would grieve me very much." " Then, I shall take it !" she exclaimed, rising. " I shall go home and write my acceptance at once. But re- member, I shall hold it only during your pleasure." " You will hold it as long as you please, and that will be during my pleasure. " He stopped to write his telegram to the Governor of Colorado, and then the two left the room. She sent the carriage home empty, and he walked with her as far as the corner of Wall Street and Broadway, and saw her safely over the latter street at this, its most crowded part. Then he sent the telegram to the governor, and 116 A STKONG-MIKDED WOMAN. returned to his office to meet the three reporters. Two hours afteward the true story of the hanging of Jim Bosler and Luke Kittle was scattered broadcast over the city. There was but one opinion among people of all classes in regard to the act, and that was, that it was a righteous deed well done. But there were many who professed different views from those they really held. There was much impotent gnashing of teeth on the part of some of the more virulent of Moultrie's political enemies, for they saw their strongest card rendered use- less. The people at the Avenger and Controller offices felt particularly indignant, for they had each had a visit that morning from Miss Billy Bremen, who, with much malicious glee, informed them that the publication would fill the hearts of Moultrie and his friends with terror. Now they saw that, so far from being scared at the idea of his connection with the affair becoming known, he had voluntarily told the whole story. Toward evening, they, as well as the other papers to be issued in the morn- ing, were provided with copies of the governor's tele- gram, which was as follows : li DENVER, November 5, 1874. u To GEOFFREY MOULTRIE, ESQ., NEW YORK. " The execution of James Bosler and Luke Kittle in the fall of 1872, by the Vigilance Committee of Hell- bender, in this Territory, met with the universal approval of the people. Both were of the worst type of scoun- drels, and Bosler had murdered eleven men. The law was powerless to reach these men, and the public safety demanded their death. In accordance with the general wish expressed by the people in public meetings and DOUBTS ARE DISSIPATED. 117 through the press, an act of indemnity and of thanks was passed by the Legislative Council at the session of 1873- 74, which I had great pleasure in approving. "W. C. PKENTISS, " Governor of Colorado." On receiving a copy of this telegram the Avenger and the Controller thought it advisable not to mention the affair, though the other morning papers published it in full, besides making copious extracts from the account of Moultrie's interview with the reporters. After the return from Jerome Park, Moultrie com- municated to Lalage the whole story of his connection with the hanging of Bosler and Kittle. That she was surprised was a matter of course, for she had not even known that they were dead. It can scarcely be said, how- ever, that she regretted that she was now absolutely safe from them in the future ; for with all the sense of security she experienced as Moultrie's daughter, and with the utmost reliance on his power to defend her, there was at times a vague feeling of apprehension in regard to these men, that nothing could altogether allay. Lai was endowed with excellent common-sense. She was capable of at once perceiving all the salient points of a subject submitted to her mind. Her early associations had been such as to make her familiar with the theory and practice of vigilance committees ; and though she had been brought up by Mr. and Mrs. Bosler to hate them, she knew that there was no repressive agency so greatly feared as' this swift, silent, but expeditious power, which struck its deadly blows in the name of law and order. She knew, too, with what thorough contempt Bosler had regarded the law, and how he had repeatedly said that it would be im- 118 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. possible to convict him even if the officers dared to make his arrest for any act he might commit. ' ' Why, ' ' he used to say, " two or three on us owns them constables, body and soul, and we bought 'em cheap, too. And as to juries, I'd jist like to see twelve men in a box in Costilla County, and me with nary a friend among 'em. It's jist on possible. The rope that's to hang me ain't bin made yit, nor the rope-walk built, nor the men born as is to make it." But with all his bragging, she knew that he had a wholesome fear of vigilance committees, and that this feeling had often restrained him from the commission of contemplated crimes. It was, therefore, no difficult undertaking for Moultrie to convince her that there were times in the lives of states and of men where the laws that men had made for their own good must be disre- garded in the presence of circumstances for which the laws made no specific provision. He reminded her that the killing of a man in the abstract is no crime. Homi- cide in personal self-defence is a justifiable act, and homi- cide in defence of the State a still more righteous deed. Even killing in the protection of property is perfectly legitimate. He told her how, in the suppression of a mutiny, an army or navy officer does not hesitate to kill on the spot ; that policemen in making arrests are often obliged to take life, and that under all circumstances and in all situations the safety of the people is the first law, although it is written in no statute-book. But while justifying the executions of Bosler and Kittle, Moultrie did not attempt to gloss over his own share in the transaction. He admitted that the desire to punish Bosler for the acts against him that he had com- DOUBTS ARE DISSIPATED. 119 mitted was the determining cause of his participation in the proceeding. With the hanging of Kittle, however, he had had nothing to do, as he had turned over the command of the committee and the functions of judge before that individual was brought to trial. It was a wrong motive in him, and he could only plead his humanity in extenuation. Had it been the only incen- tive, he would, he declared, long ago have demanded a trial ; but he was conscious that he had been to a great extent actuated by a regard for the public welfare, and in conducting the proceedings against Bosler he had stu- diously refrained from intruding his own private griefs and wrongs upon the committee. The wretch had been tried solely for the murder of a man named Hallam, whom he had killed wantonly, for the mere amusement of com- mitting murder, and for that crime he was executed. Mankind, he pointed out to her, would not regard his motives as unworthy a man of honor. The destroyer of the peace of a household, such as was Bosler, can find no refuge among civilized mankind from the vengeance of those who have suffered at his hands. If he had met Bos- ler after becoming acquainted with the fact that he was the abductor of his child, the cause of his wife's mental derangement and death, and of his suffering during seventeen years if he had encountered this man in the streets of any city in the United States, with the memory of his wrongs strong in his heart, and had shot him down like a dog, no jury could have been found to convict him. All this, however, did not make his conduct right in his own sight, and ever since he had not ceased to re- proach himself for his agency in the affair. He had had his punishment was still receiving it, in fact, and he ad- mitted the justice with which it was meted out to him. 120 A STBONG-MINDED WOMAN. " Time," lie said, " may soften the infliction, but prob- ably will never altogether remove from my mind the consciousness that I did a sinful act. " And yet, dear," he continued, as Lai raised his hand to her face wet with tears, " I am not morbid over the matter. I have so much to make me happy, that continual sorrow would be impossible, I think. But every now and then the pang comes. It is instantaneous. It goes as quickly as it strikes, but while it is there it is severe. And thus I am reminded that in taking upon myself the office of an avenger I violated that mandate of God, ' Vengeance is mine I will repay ! ' " " No, no," cried Lai, as she put her arms around his neck and drew his head to her breast ; " don't say that to me. Don't you remember how he sold me to Luke Kittle, and tied me with ropes and straps like a sheep as is sold to the butcher ? Whar would 1 a' bin now ef it hadn't bin for you and the others as was agin him ? Oh, father," she continued, in an agony of grief, and tears, and sobs that almost choked her utterance, " my darlin', ef I thought as you war goin' to feel like that all your life, I'd never smile agin oh, no, never agin !" It was sweet to him, this tempest of emotion, that rose like a mountain torrent of the Sierra Madre, sweep- ing everything before it in its resistless course. Her tears were sweet, her sobs were music to his ears, but dearer than all were the words that welled up from her heart and rushed forth in the homely dialect of her childhood. Yes, if anything in all the world could banish his remorse, it would be the love of this dear child, whom he had rescued from a fate worse than death. Once more he pressed her to his heart. " I'd a' killed him myself onst," continued Lai, " ef DOUBTS AKE DISSIPATED. 121 I'd had a knife. Oh, I was mighty fierce then, I tell you ; and when he was a- try in' to put them cords and straps around me his life warn't worth a cent to me ! And now you're goin' to make yourself miserable all your life for him as would a-done them things to me ! 1 jist can't stand it. I'd rather die. Oh, yes, I'd rather die right now ! And all on account of a man as stole me and killed my mother !" " My dear child," he said at last, " every word you say is inexpressibly sweet to me. 1 think if I had told you all at the very first you would have done much to lessen the regret I experienced, and to prevent its taking so firm a hold of me. I think I can promise you that it will not trouble me much henceforth. "What argument and reason could never have done the outpouring of your sympathy and love will scarcely fail to accomplish. Come ! dry your pretty eyes," he continued, with a smile, " and get back into a civilized form of speech. Do you know that for the last five minutes you have been talking like a ' Wild Girl of the West,' or ' a Prairie Rose, ' as Tyscovus calls you ?' ' The sunshine of her smile came out again, as with her arm in his she went into the drawing-room. That night Theodora wrote her acceptance of the two appointments that had been tendered her. CHAPTEE TIL AN ELECTION AND ITS RESULT. THE election was over. Each of tlie three parties had exhausted all its devices for reaching the sophisticated and the unsophisticated voter, according to his kind ; but the two opponents of Moultrie had felt all day that the chances for either of them were slim. The publica- tion of the fact that he had headed a vigilance committee organized for the purpose of ridding Colorado of a set of desperadoes that had for many years disturbed the peace of the Territory and had defied the law had aided him greatly, very much to the disgust of Miss Billy Bremen and her coadjutors. Men reasoned that he had shown his readiness to accept the most weighty responsibilities, and to do his utmost while they were on his shoulders to carry them through to a successful termination. No quality appeals more strongly to the heart of the average man than courage, especially that moral species of the faculty that causes the possessor to stand up and face the consequences of his acts. The poll had been a large one, and according to the returns received at Moultrie's headquarters, his vote was greatly in excess of that given to either of his opponents. Still, although all reports were of an encouraging nature, nothing definite could of course be known till the count- ing of the ballots was finished. He had not visited the polling-places during the day, notwithstanding the AN ELECTION AND ITS KESTJLT. 123 fact that his u committee" thought it would be advisable for him to show himself to his adherents, if only for the purpose of keeping up their spirits. He had invited the Hon. Tom Burton to dine with him, and had asked two other personal friends to meet him. The gentlemen were in the library after dinner smoking their cigars and awaiting, without much apprehension as to the result, the reception of the semi-official returns. It was now eight o'clock, and they could not be much longer de- layed. " I shouldn't be at all surprised," said Mr. Burton, as he shook the ashes from his cigar into a little silver dish that stood on the table by his side, " if you had a plu- rality of three thousand over O' Leary. I suppose there is no doubt that he will lead Jackson." " I am not so sure of that," said Mr. Braden, a prom- inent lawyer, who had taken great interest in Moultrie's canvass. " Jackson has great strength among the Ger- mans and among a certain class of manufacturers who do not know what is good for them. I think it will be close between them ; but I am quite certain that Jack- son will poll more votes than O'Leary." " Burton is right, I think," observed Judge Miller, a portly gentleman about fifty years of age, who spoke with great deliberation, as though he were weighing every word that escaped from his lips. " Of course it would not do for a member of the judiciary to take an active part in an election. At least, that has always been my idea. But in a quiet way I have been an observant spectator, and I am very certain that O'Leary will poll a much larger vote than Jackson. He has, in the first place, as you know, the ' indorsement,' as it is called, of Tuscarora Hall, and that has gone far to add to his 124 A STKONG-MINDED WOMAN. strength. He will get a good portion of the German and nearly the whole of the Irish vote." " Yes, that is so !" exclaimed Burton ; " but did you hear how every Italian vote in the district was secured for our friend here ? I don't believe he knows. But, as it's over now, I suppose I may as well tell him." u I hope," said Moultrie, gravely, " that no mislead- ing representations were made to them. ' ' " Oh, no," answered Burton, laughing ; " it was not so bad as that ; but at the same time it shows how easily votes can sometimes be obtained. I think I shall have to tell, if only to show that fact, as well as to let you know how readily some of these foreigners learn the art of manipulating their people. " Well," he continued, as a general assent was given, " since I've been here in New York I've occasionally taken my meals at FiescolL's restaurant, for I'm rather partial to Italian cookery. About a week ago, as I was eating a dish of maccaroni, as only Fiescoli can cook it, I called him to me, and complimented him on its excel- lence. He was greatly delighted with my praises, and seeing that his heart was open to the reception of grand ideas and sound political truth, I asked him how he was going to vote. Without any hesitation he informed me that he should vote for Jackson, mainly, however, as he said, because all the Irish were going to vote for O'Leary, and because some one had told him some emissary of Jackson's, as 1 afterward learned that Moul- trie was a Frenchman. Now, Fiescoli hates the French almost as bad as he does the Irish, so that he naturally went in for Jackson. " 1 soon disabused his mind of the idea that you were anything else than an American of over two hundred AN ELECTION AND ITS RESULT. 125 years' existence in the country, and then I tackled him on the tariff. ' How much does your maccaroni cost you a box ? ' I inquired. " ( Four dollars,' he answered, with a groan. " ' And what is it worth in Naples ? ' " ' Less than two dollars,' he replied, with a sigh that seemed like the distant rumbling of Mount Vesuvius. " ' Well, my friend,' I said, though with some diffi- culty, for 1 had just put a mess as big as a teacup into rny mouth, and was adjusting it to its new situation, ' the difference goes into the pockets of the " Sweetwater Maccaroni Manufacturing Company," who, you will doubtless admit, make a devilish bad article. ' " l I should think so !' he exclaimed in his picturesque" the Hon. Tom was not always precise in his use of adjectives " English ; ' I wouldn't presume to set it before you. You wouldn't eat it, though I have been told that that rascal Mali gives it to his customers be- cause it costs a few cents less on the box.' " i You'd like to get your maccaroni fresh from Naples, wouldn't you, and just as cheap as you could there, with the little addition of the freight ? ' " ' Of course I would. 1 have a cousin who makes it. I'd buy more, and I'd sell more, for 1 could sell it cheaper. ' u ' My friend ! ' I exclaimed, jumping up, '" give me your hand ! You are a political economist of the first water. Now, Mr. Moultrie is in favor of letting in all the maccaroni Naples can make free of duty. He's the man for you. Don't you see ? ' i i "Well, to cut the story short, 1 not only secured his vote, but I arranged a meeting of Italians to take place in his restaurant. About fifty of the prominent mem- 126 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. bers of the colony attended. I ascertained first that there were at least three hundred Italian voters in the district. Not many, perhaps, but every vote counts in an election. I ordered a supper of maccaroni, ravioli, frittura, olives, and other Italian dishes, with plenty of Yino di Capri and Montepulciano to drink, and with the cry of c Free maccaroni ! ' 1 sent my disciples out into the wilderness ; and the consequence was that every Italian vote was cast for Moultrie." u And the further consequence will be," said Mr. Braden, laughing, " that when they find that they won't get their maccaroni any cheaper next year than they do this, they will visit their indignation on Moul- trie." " Oh, well," exclaimed Burton, u c after me the del- uge ! ' Still, it was all fair ; I did not misrepresent Moul- trie, for he is in favor of free maccaroni." " So I am, or, at least, very nearly so, ' ' said Moultrie ; " but I am afraid you misled them in regard to my power to make the change. You ought to have been more exact on that point." " Oh, they'll find that out soon enough, I promise you ! Then you can write a letter to them that will quiet them till the next election comes round." Just then a servant entered with a telegram, which he handed on a salver to Moultrie. "The first returns," he said, as he opened the en- velope. " Yes," reading the communication, " ' Six pre- cincts give Moultrie 2275, O'Leary 1250, and Jackson 1021.'" " Hurrah !" exclaimed Burton, rising in his excite- ment and swinging his handkerchief. " By George ! you'll beat 'them both together. You'll get returns AN ELECTION AND ITS RESULT. 127 pretty rapidly now, and in half an hour we'll know who's elected." " May we come in ?" said Theodora, holding aside the heavy portiere, and revealing herself and Lai standing in the doorway. " We're ever so anxious to hear the news, and we don't mind the smoke a bit." Every gentleman was on his feet in an instant, and the cigars were dropped. " Of course you may," said Moultrie, laughing, " pro- vided you'll promise not to cry if I'm defeated." " Oh, we'll promise anything ; but we won't come un- less you will go on with your smoking." " You've been well brought up, Mrs. Moultrie," said Burton, and amid the general expression of the pleasure their company would give, the two ladies entered the room, and were escorted to chairs by Mr. Burton and Judge Miller. They had hardly got seated before another communication was brought in. " ' Eighteen precincts,' 5 said Moultrie, reading, "'give Moultrie 4280, O'Leary 2830, and Jackson 1450.' " " Jackson is running behind, as I said he would," ex- claimed Burton ; " but by the immortal shade of Sam Houston, what a magnificent vote you're polling, Moul- trie ! Madam," turning to Theodora, " I am almost ready to congratulate you. How many precincts are there in this district, Judge ?" "About thirty, I think," answered that gentleman; " but the heaviest are to come in yet. Still, 1 don't see how any other than the result we desire can be obtained. " All through the dinner Burton had been so enraptured with Lai's appearance that he could not keep his eyes off of her, and she was more than sufficient to banish all 128 A STEONG-MINDED WOMAN. recollection of Rachel Meadows from the susceptible Texan's heart. He was one of those men who are taken with every pretty face they see, and whose constancy in matters of the affections is, up to a certain point, no more to be relied upon than that of the direction of the wind. - " In all my life," said he to himself, as he stole a furtive glance at her, " I never saw such a beauty. She's the sort of a woman a man goes through fire and water for if necessary. I wish she'd ask me to do something for her. If she'd drop her glove into a den of wild beasts, I'd get it for her devilish quick, and I wouldn't throw it in her face, either, as did that blackguard De Longe. " ' And she thought the count my lover is as brave as brave can be. He surely would do desperate things to show his love for me.' If the house now would only catch fire or a burglar make his appearance just behind her chair, I'd show her what a Texan gentleman would do." " You Southerners take more interest in politics that we Northerners do," said Theodora, addressing Bur- ton. " Yes, madam, even yet ; but you Northerners have done about the best you could to destroy the breed of Southern gentlemen as it was before the war. But I thought you were Southern. ' ' " So I am ; I'm a Virginian ; but a woman goes with her husband, you know." " Not always," he answered, laughing ; " I can call to mind many instances on the breaking out of the war in which the husband went with the wife, and she hur- ried back to her plantation as soon as she could." AN ELECTION AND ITS RESULT. 129 He waited a moment to see if Theodora had any inten- tion of continuing the conversation. Then, as she said something to Judge Miller, he turned to Lai : " Do you take much interest in politics, Miss Moul- trie?" " Only this time," she answered, with a smile that sent Burton into the realms of bliss, " and and one other," with a little hesitation, and a blush that made her look still lovelier. " That's the Polish count," thought Burton. " He's running for delegate to Congress from some western Territory. A Polish count to get that angel ! My God ! what are we coming to ! I've seen three Polish counts in my day one was a barber, one a runner for a steamboat, and the third tried to pick my pocket, and got knocked down and sent to Blackwell's Island for his pains. He was the most enterprising of the lot, but not altogether a desirable acquaintance. I wonder if this one is any better ! Oh, he must be ! Moultrie is too sensible and the girl, too, to allow any frauds about. 1' 11 draw her out a little. " And the other is ?" he said, interrogatively. Without the least hesitation Lai answered, " The other is Mr. Tyscovus of Colorado. He is a Polish gentleman. My mother was a Pole. " " Ah ! that," he said, with feigned ignorance, " ac- counts for your interest in him. Foreigners are getting all the best places now," and, he added to himself, " all the pretty girls, too." " He is half an American. His mother was a New Yorker." " And you are half Polish. Delightful !" " Yes, it is very nice," said Lai, simply. 130 A STKONG-MIKDED WOMAN. " All, there's another report !" said Mr. Braden, as the man entered with the salver and the despatch. Moultrie handed it to Theodora. " Read it, my dear," he said, and then, in a low voice to her, "if it contains good news it will be all the more welcome from you." She smiled lovingly on him as she opened the en- velope. " ( Twenty-five precincts, ' " she read, " t give Moultrie 7930*, O'Leary 4200, and Jackson 3482. Seven more precincts to be heard from. Moultrie certainly elected by a majority over both the other candidates.' ' " Hurrah ! Hurrah ! Hurrah !" cried Burton, springing to his feet and waving his handkerchief. " What did 1 tell you ? I'll have to stay in New York to teach you fellows politics. ' ' Theodora had already given her hand to Moultrie ; Lai was the next to congratulate him, and then the gen- tlemen followed, Burton being the most enthusiastic. Then he shook hands with Theodora and with Lai, actuated probably in this latter instance more by a desire to get her little hand in his than by any other motive. "Miss Moultrie," he said, "I hope that 'other' will have as fortunate a termination as this." " I do not know," she answered ; " it is very doubtful. The election took place to-day, but I do not expect to hear before to-morrow. " "Well, 'a happy issue out of all your afflictions,' as the Bible says. ' ' " That is not in the Bible, Mr. Burton. That is in the Prayer-book." " Oh, yes, to be sure ! I knew I had seen it in some familiar place. " AN ELECTION AND ITS RESULT. 131 Theodora had rung the bell, and "'Joey" was entering with champagne in silver coolers. " I had this pre- pared," she said, " for 1 felt sure you would succeed." " Happy the woman who has confidence in her hus- band !" exclaimed Burton. " Now, Mistress Moultrie, if you'll be kind enough to send that man away and allow me to act as Ganymede to our Jupiter and the other gods and goddesses, you will do me a great favor." Then, without waiting for an answer, he took the bottle from the man, and the wires being already removed, cut the strings that held the cork, and in true Southern style allowed the bottle to pop. " Now, ladies and gentle- men," he continued, " your glasses, please. My friend," sotto voce to " Joey," who was lingering with the other bottle, " won't you be kind enough to get out of the way ?" " Joey" looked indignant, but at a sign from his mistress disappeared. The Hon. Tom Burton was now in his element. He had already distributed glasses all around, and / was engaged in filling them with the foaming liquor. I " ' Yeuve Clicquot, etiquette jaune,' as I'm a living sinner ! The only champagne fit for a gentleman to drink." All this to himself. " Now," he continued, addressing the whole party, " here's to the health of the Hon. Geoffrey Moultrie, Member of Congress elect from the city of New York. May he live a thousand years, and may we all be at his funeral !" u What a horrid man !" said Lai to Theodora, after the toast had been drunk and the congratulations re- newed. " I do not like him at all." " A little effusive, my dear, but yet very sincere, I think, and quite funny sometimes." " A final telegram," said Moultrie, at the end of a 132 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. few words of thanks, and as the missive was handed to him. " I suppose this will give us the total result. Yes, here it is : " ' All the precincts in. Moultrie, 10,115 ; O'Leary, 5610 ; Jackson, 4002. Three cheers for Moultrie ! Good-night.'" " So your plurality over O'Leary is 4505," said Bur- ton, who, with paper and pencil, had already made the calculation, " and your majority over both him and Jackson 503. If it had not been for my Italians, it would only have been 200. Come, gentlemen, ' ' to the Judge and Mr. Braden, " won't you accompany me to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, where we shall learn something from the rest of the country ? The whole political interest of the campaign is not concentrated in this room." He stayed a few minutes longer, mainly apparently for the purpose of finishing the second bottle of ( ' Veuve Clicquot, etiquette jaune," and then he and the other two gentlemen took their departure. Moultrie followed them out into the hall. " I owe a good deal to you, Burton," he said, shaking his hand again. " You're the best political manager I ever saw, though I think that perhaps you went a little too far with the Italians." " Perhaps so," said the other, looking very much pleased at the expression of Moultrie' s opinion ; " but you can make it all right by giving them a reception at Fiescoli's, and asking them to bring their wives and children. As to my services, I am delighted to hear you say what you do. Now," he added, in a lower tone, " if you have any influence with the Administration and doubtless you will be high in favor there and you think I'm fit for it, get me the consulship to Barcelona. AN ELECTION AND ITS RESULT. 133 I'm interested in Spanish art and history, and, by George ! I want an office of some kind. I think the desire for office was born in me, and I've been out in the cold now a long time.' ' " I'm quite sure of your competency, but I am afraid you overestimate my influence. Certainly, however, I will do what I can, and with great pleasure." " I speak Spanish as well as I do English, " continued Burton. " How many consuls, or even ministers, can speak the language of the country they go to ? Not one in a hundred." " That is true," relied Moultrie, laughing. " Many of them can't even speak their own language prop- erly." Hardly had Moultrie returned to the library, after seeing the gentlemen out of the house, than another tele- gram was brought to him. He looked at it, and then handed it to Lai. " This is for you, my dear," he said. " It is probably from Tyscovus." She took it, and with hands that trembled a little opened the envelope. A gleam of pleasure at once ap- peared on her face, and deepened as she read. "Oh, father," she exclaimed, "he is coming! He will be here in less than three weeks, and he is elected." " Read it aloud, Lai, dear." " It is very short, only a few words : u ' HELLBENDER, COLORADO, ) November 5, 1874. ) " i To Miss LALAGE MOULTRIE, No. FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK : " ' Returns not all in, but enough received to make it certain that I am elected delegate by over 1500 majority. 134 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. Will be in New York on or before the 25tli inst. Write to me at Planter's House, St. Louis. " ' JOHN TYSCOVUS.' " " We are in luck to-night," said Theodora. " Every- thing seems to go well with us. This only was want- ing to make our happiness complete." " He will make his mark in Congress, my dear, even though he has only the right to speak, without that of voting," said Moultrie to Lalage, who stood by his side, with her hands resting on his arm. " Indeed, his whole career in this country has been somewhat remarkable." " And before he came here it was still more so. 1 did not know it all when I left him on the butte, or I really think I could not have come away. But he wrote me a long letter once oh, a very long letter ! many sheets of paper and he told me his whole life." " He has exhibited the most wonderful perseverance and courage, and suffered greatly. Now, however, my dear child, he has, so far as we can perceive, only hap- piness to look forward to. But I see you want to think over your telegram and its possibilities," he added, smiling, " so good-night, dear, and don't sit up so late as to spoil your eyes." She smiled sweetly as she kissed them both good-night. " I am very happy to-night/' she said " oh, yes, very happy !" She went to her own room, and began her prepara- tions for going to bed. First she sent her maid away, for this was a night on which she wished to be alone. She stood in front of the mirror of her dressing-table, arranging her hair for the night. Perhaps she did not see what everybody else perceived, that she was wonder- AN ELECTION AND ITS RESULT. 135 fully beautiful. She was not heavenly or angelic, or in any way supernatural, as are some of the women one hears described. She was only a human woman, but one of the loveliest specimens of the creation that ever walked the earth. Yes, she must have known that she was beautiful, for as her arms were raised above her head, and her hair fell in its raven-hued masses over her neck and shoulders, far below her waist, she smiled and whis- pered softly to herself, " I think he will love me more than ever now. 1 think he will like to see me." She finished what she had to do, and then putting on a wrapper of some soft material, and with her feet encased in little velvet slippers, she sat down by a square table in the centre of the room, on which stood a carcel-lamp. Then she opened, by touching a spring, a little antique iron cabinet that was on the table, and took from it a small book bound in vellum. The cover was very elab- orately gilt in a diamond-shaped pattern, the interstices being occupied by fleurs-de-lis in gold. She opened the book, and read on the fly-leaf : "To Lai, from her friend John Tyseovus. The Butte, September 13th, 1872." Yes, that was when she had begun to love him. Her thoughts went back to that day. She saw herself on the floor at his feet, her arms clasped around his knees in an agony of mingled grief and joy. She saw the lov- ing look in his eyes as he raised her from the floor ; she recalled the strange, new feeling of rapture and bliss, tinged with fear, that had swept through her like a tem- pest, and that had impelled her to run away from him before he could say a word more. It was very dear to her, this little vellum-bound book, for it marked the boundary-line between her two lives. It was the em- blem of her renaissance y it had been his. She pressed 136 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. it to her lips, then to her heart, and held it there as though it were the form of him she loved. For she was a woman almost as nature had made her, with all her fresh young feelings springing up in her breast, un- curbed by any prudish ideas that it was wrong to exhibit emotion, even to herself, in the privacy of her own chamber. " Oh, how 1 love him !" she said, as she still held the book close to her heart. She seemed to lose herself in the memories of the past, for she began to speak in the low, soft, melodious voice that captivated every ear that ever heard it, and in that rude dialect that, when she was greatly moved, asserted its power. " And then that night that awful night, as I run up the butte to git away from them men as I thought was after me. I was awful skeered, and I wasn't quite sure as he'd keer to see me agin. I knowed some one was after me, for I heard the stones rollin' down the butte. I thought as how I mought git in the other room and stay thar till mornin', and then go away and he never know as I'd bin thar at all. I run jist about as hard as I could, and that warn't fast, for I was clean near broke down. I guess ef I'd had another ten yards to go, I'd a' giv out ; but I got to the top, and thar he stood right afore me, with his dear arms ready for me. Oh, yes, for me ! And I heerd him say, ' Lai, my darlin' ! ' and then I knowed I was safe, and that he keered for me more'n any one else in all the world. " And now he's comin'. Oh, my love! my love ! Onst agin you'll call me ' Lai,' and I'll see you and talk to you, and and oh, yes ! and kiss you, jist as I did that last time when I come away, and left you all alone on the butte, and me with my heart 'most broke." AN ELECTION AND ITS RESULT. 137 She had not seen him since that parting, over two years ago. It had been arranged that he should visit her twice' a year ; but when the first six months had expired an extra session of the Legislature of which he was a member had been called on account of Indian disturb- ances, and was to meet in a few days. The session had lasted over a month, and then had come the Navajo war, in which he had taken an active part, and then the nomi- nation as delegate to Congress, and the necessity of re- maining in Colorado to look after interests that were of vital importance. So all visits had been omitted, and his final appearance to claim his bride had been delayed a month ; but at last he was coming ! Every night since she had left him she had, as she had promised him she would, read a little from the book he had given her, and which she now held in her hand. She remembered with what difficulty she had been able to make out the meaning of many of the words when she had first attempted its perusal. It was nearly three hundred years old, and printed in type that was strange to her inexperienced eyes ; but she had persevered, and even then she had managed to read and understand the words of wisdom with which the little book abounded. Now she knew it by heart. There was not a page that was not familiar to her ; but every time she brought the words before her eyes she discovered some thought that had never before been revealed to her. She opened the book and began to read ; but although it was easy enough for her now for she had read almost every spare moment of her time since she had left Colo- rado the thoughts excited by the knowledge that within twenty days at farthest she would see the man she loved, caused her mind to wander somewhat from the subject 138 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. before her. Nevertheless, she persevered bravely, and had stopped to think of what she had just read, when a light knock at the door disturbed her. She rose and opened it, and admitted Theodora. " I left your father in the library," she said, " and I thought I would come and talk with you a few minutes. He has a great many letters to write, and some other business to do that will keep him up late." " You shall have the nicest chair in the room," said Lai, pushing up one in front of the fire that was a mass of soft, yielding upholstery, and into which Theodora sank with an air of fatigue. " Now, put your feet on the fender and warm them well. That is what I do every night before I go to bed." She replaced her book in the iron cabinet, and drew up her own chair in front of the fire. " Oh, Lai !" said Theodora, after sitting a few mo- ments in silence, " I am afraid I have done something very wrong, and that I am going to be very unhappy." Lai looked at her mother in. utter astonishment. She could say nothing, for she had no idea upon which to base a word in the nature of a reply. She could only stare fixedly, waiting in eager expectancy for some ex- planation. " I ought to have been content with the world of happiness that I had here in my own household, where every wish of my heart is law, where I am beloved, and where I love ; but I was not satisfied ; my mind has been trained in ways that caused me to feel that there was a wider domain at my feet than that of my own home, and one in which I could not only gain distinction, but benefit mankind. Perhaps in time this would have worn out, for we are so much the creatures of habit, and AN ELECTION AND ITS RESULT. 139 I tried my utmost to crush the desires that had gotten possession of me ; but in an evil hour they were revived tenfold by an offer of a professorship of physiology in a medical college for women. I would not have taken this place if your father had advised me not to do so, but he saw what my wishes were, and he is so kind and gener- ous, and he loves me so much, that he would interpose no objection." " But he was willing for you to take it, was he not ?" " Yes, he was willing." " Then that is enough, I think." " No, my dear, I think not. Perhaps you do not un- derstand. He was willing for me to accept, but it was only because he thought I would be unhappy if he showed the least lack of approval. He sacrificed his own wishes in order that mine might be gratified." "Ah, that is like him !" " Yes, it is like him." "I suppose," said Lai, with great earnestness, "if you were to go to him now, without waiting one mo- ment, and tell him that you had thought it all over, and that you had found out that you would be happier at home than in lecturing in a medical college, and that you would rather give your mind as well as your heart to him, and," she added, rising from her chair and put- ting her arms around Theodora's neck, " to me, he would be very glad, would he not ?" " Yes, dear, 1 am sure he would be very glad." " Then go ! I will go with you we will go together. He loves us better than he does all the rest of the world. " " But I have accepted the professorship, and I have an answer acknowledging the receipt of my letter, and stating that the lectures will begin week after next." 140 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. " Can you not, dear, take back your letter ?" "No, I think not." " But you can give up this place. What do you care for teaching medicine to women when you have father and me to look after ? Besides, if you are busy in a medical college you cannot go to Washington with him this winter." " That is true, and he wants me to go with him. He has laid all his plans for himself and me. He looks for- ward with delight to seeing me at the head of his house, and he will be awfully disappointed if I do not go." " Give it up, dear oh, give it up !" cried Lai. " It will make me ridiculous if I do. People will say I do not know my own mind." "Let them say what they please! You will have him. Better be ridiculous than make him and yourself miserable." " Yes, yes!" cried Theodora, bursting into tears. " I know that oh, 1 know it well! But then I have been brought up in such a way that these things have a hold on me that I cannot shake off. Till 1 met your father I thought 1 should never marry, but that I should give my whole life to science ; and then he came, and I loved him, and for a time I thought I loved him more than I did my books and my studies. I was honest in that, God knows I was ! But I now see that 1 cannot shake off the old love, do what I may. There is a con- stant spirit of unrest in me that I cannot resist. I have tasted of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and I must go on eating it all my life." " I do not think I understand," said Lai, very slowly, and as though speaking to herself. u You do not mean to say that you love all these things about such matters AN ELECTION AND ITS KESULT. 141 as electricity and dead animals better than you do my father and your husband ?" " I don't know. I love him with all my heart ; but, God help me !" she added, bitterly, " I am afraid the heart is all crushed out of me. I ought to be willing to go to him, as you say, and tell him that my world is in him, but 1 cannot do it." " I am very sorry, " said Lai. ' ' 1 have many thoughts in my mind that 1 cannot speak, for, you see, I do not / know enough yet to say what 1 feel. But if I was / John's wife I should think that I could not be anything I else, for everything that took me away from him woulcH make me just that much less his wife. I should think every day of all that he had done for me, and I should feel that, if I was to live thousands of years, I could never pay him back. It is not much that women can do for men but love them, and I do not see how teach- ing all these things in a college is going to make father any happier, except it is just because he thinks you like it. But after a while he will get tired of that. Here in my book the one that John gave me I read that men are different from women in that one thing that unless women try to keep their love they lose it. A woman has to be always trying to keep the man loving her. That is what I read. If father was to stop loving you it would be very bad, would it not V ' " If he was to cease loving me I should not care to live." " Well, that is what it will come to. There is noth- ing in that book that is not true. Not one single word," she added, with a strong emphasis on each syllable. " I think I will read you just two or three lines, and then you will see. There is great danger oh, yes, very 142 A STKONG-MINDED WOMAN. great danger ! But this will show you, and then you will know what to do. ' ' She opened the cabinet, and taking out the book, soon found what she wanted, and read as follows : " c Let me tell you, my dear child, now that you are about to marry the man you love, that however much he may be worthy of your affection, and however much he may adore you, that man is by nature inconstant, and that Stephen does not differ from others of his sex in that respect, whatever he may say to you. It is neces- sary that you should always be on the alert, ever watch- ful in order to keep his love for you as fresh and as in- tense as it now is. If, therefore, in the years to come you should fail to exhibit toward him the same tender- ness and concentrated devotion that you feel to-day, there will be danger that the warm love that now fills his heart may, little by little, grow cold. ' ' " Lai, my darling, you have taught me something to- night," exclaimed Theodora " something for me to think over ! Every word of that is true, and I, a phys- iologist, as I have called myself, have never known it till now!" " Let the single women and the widows give the lect- ures," laughed Lai, in triumph over her victory, "if women must lecture ; but for us who are married, or going to be very soon, there are better things, and the best of them is keeping the love of our husbands. Oh,. I was sure the book would set you right !" " Good-night, dear. You are Geoffrey's child, and you are my friend. Kiss me," embracing her as she spoke. " Now go to bed, for I have kept you up much later than is usual for you." Oh, I have to write to John yet, and then 1 must c< AN ELECTION AND ITS KESULT. 143 copy a page out of my book ! I am copying it all, so that he will see how much 1 think of it. See ! 1 am now at the three hundred and tenth page, and there are only nine more left. It will all be done by the time he gets here. It is a great book ; it saved me, and now 1 think it will save you." CHAPTEE VIII. THEODORA DECIDES. ALTHOUGH Rachel Meadows thought it due to her dig- nity and her peace of mind to resign from the executive committee of the " United Women of America," she could not, upon reflection, find that she was yet prepared to altogether abandon the movement in favor of the ad- vancement of women. She had taken great interest in the organization of various schemes tending to extend the field of labor for her sex. There was a woman's art- school, where girls were taught needlework, painting on canvas, porcelain, etc., wood-carving and designing pat- terns for carpets and other textile fabrics. There was a commercial college for women, where the pupils were in- doctrinated into the mysteries of bookkeeping, and thus qualified for positions as clerks in mercantile and other establishments ; and then last, but by no means least in her estimation, was the " Martha Washington Medical College for Women." This institution had been founded with a great flourish of trumpets by a meeting in Chickering Hall, with a bishop and fifty or more persons on the platform, among them being clergymen, physicians, lawyers, capitalists, and a very few professional agitators. Nobody except a dozen or so narrow-minded doctors had made any active opposition to the movement. Chief among them was a certain Dr. McPheeters, a little, sour-visaged, and still THEODORA DECIDES. 145 more sour-souled individual, of whom a prominent and witty member of the profession had said that he never met him without involuntarily writing a prescription for twenty drops of essence of peppermint on a lump of sugar. This shining light had never contributed an idea, or even a surgical instrument, to the science of medicine, but his opinion, from the oracular manner in which it was delivered, his confident reference to the u dignity of the profession," and the assurance that Hippocrates, if alive, " would hang his honored head in very shame," went for something with certain of his medical brethren. Dr. McPheeters headed a little band, who resolved that they would not countenance the entrance of women into the ranks of the profession. They declared that not only would they not consult with them, but that they would not consult with any other physician who recognized them. This, the fulmen Jovi of the stagnant medical man, had been hurled, but it did not seem to have had much effect, for not only were there several prominent physicians on the platform at the meeting, but there were many more equally as noted in the body of the audience. All these were men that had made their mark on the science, and whose names were well known wherever medical books were read. Any one of them had done more toward the advancement of medicine or surgery than Dr. McPheeters and all his coadjutors put together, and as a consequence each was correspondingly hated by the " stagnants." For it is a lamentable fact that there is in the medical profession a small class of do-nothings, or at best men who do nothing but routine work that has become automatic with them, and who force down to the utmost of their power those that show the slightest spark of originality in their composition. 7 146 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. The physician that does not believe with them on any question of medical science is conceived to be a humbug, or even a fraud. " The man,' ' said McPheeters, at the Minerva Club, " who holds the opinion that women should be allowed to practise medicine must necessarily be a fool, and is probably a knave. I would not consult with such a man ; 1 would have no confidence in the correctness, or even the honesty, of any opinion he might give." However, the meeting took place, the medical college was organized, and was soon afterward, with an ample endowment and well equipped in the matters of laboratories, museum, and all needful appliances for medical teaching, in the full tide of a successful experi- ment. For this result Rachel Meadows was in a great measure responsible. She had managed to interest many persons eminent in the several walks of life and possessed of ample means in the welfare of the college, and had not only obtained their influence, but what was of equal, if not of more importance, their pecuniary contributions. Rachel was the daughter of Commodore Meadows, of the United States Navy, who, after having served faith- fully, was retired from active service on arriving at the age of sixty-two, and had soon afterward died in disgust and chagrin so his friends declared at being laid on the shelf like a useless piece of apparatus, when he felt he was just as good as ever. He had left beside his widow only one child, Rachel. He had not seen much of her, for the greater part of his forty-six years of service had been passed at sea. No sooner would he return from one cruise than he was ordered on another, and thus he had only been with his family at intervals of three or four years, and only for a few weeks at a time, till a year before his death. Perhaps matters in this respect would THEODORA DECIDES. 147 have been different had there been a little more con- geniality between the Commodore and his wife. But he was a natural born tyrant, whose innate tendencies had been fostered by his education. His house was his quarter-deck, and everybody in it was, he conceived, as much under his command as were the sailors who manned his ships. He always addressed his wife as " Madam," and any difference of opinion with him was either insub- ordination or mutiny, to be punished with the utmost rigor of naval law, if only the laws of the State of New York had permitted. Upon one occasion he had locked his wife in a dark closet, and had kept her for twenty- four hours on bread and water. This little exercise of marital authority had nearly cost the Captain, as he was then, his commission ; for Mrs. Meadows, who was by no means a patient Griselda, and who could generally manage to hold her own with him in any wordy conflicts that might be going on, had complained to the Secretary of the Navy, and this official had gone so far as the pre- ferment of the charge of " conduct unbecoming an officer arid a gentleman," with six distinct specifications, alleg- ing water- thro wing up through pinching to imprison- ment. But Mrs. Meadows had gone to Washington, and had begged so effectually with the authorities for his for- giveness, and had declared that she would not testify against her husband before any court-martial that might be ordered, that they had made a virtue of necessity, and had ordered him to sea. Kachel was at that time about fifteen years of age, and had no more idea that woman was being oppressed by the male portion of humanity than such as she obtained from observing her father's conduct to her mother. She knew very little of men outside of the family circle, but 148 A STEOISTG-MINDED WOMAN. that little rather inclined her to view them with feelings of fear and contempt. And it must be said that Mrs. Meadows, by her example and precept, encouraged this conception, so far, at least, as concerned those men who " went down to the sea in ships" belonging to the naval establishment of the United States. From her intimate acquaintance with Lieutenant, Lieutenant-Commander, Commander, Captain, and Commodore Meadows, sho had, after the manner of some of her sex, jumped at the conclusion that all naval officers were brutes. " There isn't one of them," she had said to Rachel, " who wouldn't hit you on the head with a marlin-spike if he dared." " What is a marlin-spike, mamma?" Rachel had in- quired. "It's a rolling-pin, my dear, that the cook uses to make his beastly duff with on board ship. ' " And what is duff, mamma ?" " Duff is a vile compound, made of flour and water and lard, that they feed out to the sailors on Sundays. Now, don't please ask rne any more questions about those nasty ship-things. "Promise me one thing, Rachel," said her mother one day, after she and the Commodore had had a rather severer tussle with the English language than usual, i i that you will never marry a naval officer. !N ot even after I'm dead." " Oh, there is not any danger of that, mamma, for I don't know any, and they are not likely to come to the house !" But soon after that, when she was scarcely eighteen, one did come to the house, and not only once, but several times. Rachel learned very soon, after making the ac- THEODORA DECIDES. 149 quaintance of Ensign Middleton, that all naval officers were not like her father. She did not exactly love him, but she liked him very much, and she would probably have married him on his return from the cruise on which he went only shortly after she got to know him, had he not been killed under Farragut at the battle of Mobile Bay. Then Rachel took to hard study, and from hearing a series of lectures by Miss Richardson, and by reading an essay of John Stuart Mill's on the " Emancipation of Woman," she gradually, very much to the disgust of her father, and somewhat to that of her mother also, imbibed ideas of woman's duties, responsibilities, and rights, which, as the Commodore said, made his hair stand on end. u It's the most demoralizing exhibition the world has ever seen," he said one evening, after he and Rachel had been discussing several of the possibilities of the future of the sex " doctors, lawyers, clergymen, or t clergy women,' I suppose you'll call them, postmis- tresses, and the Lord only knows how many other things. After a while I suppose they'll be taking to ths navy and wanting to command steam frigates ! The Lord be with them ! when that time comes P d steer devilish clear of them, I know, unless I wanted to go to the bot- tom. And to think a daughter of mine should be aiding and abetting by her example all these turnings of the world upside down ! Running with a lot of short-haired women, getting all sorts of notions stuck in her head about the i tyranny of man,' and, the ' equality of the sexes,' and other damned nonsense. This is your work, madam," turning to his wife, who was engaged with a game of solitaire. " I left my daughter with you to educate and bring up with ideas befitting the 150 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. daughter of an officer and a gentleman. Yes, madam, a gentleman, although yon did do your best to have me tried on the charge that I wasn't, and this is what you've made of her. She'll be wanting trousers next. Isow, you listen to me !" again addressing poor Rachel, who had done nothing but ask his permission to study Latin and Greek ; " I'll have no Latin and Greek learned by any daughter of mine ; and if you don't stop going with that Richardson old maid, and others of that kind, and get your mind on some useful things that women ought to know and that they don't, I'll not leave you one cent, and you can get your living by lecturing, if you want to." Mrs. Meadows only looked up for a moment while this tirade was being delivered, and had then gone on with her game. Tears had come into Rachel's eyes, but she wiped them away, and a stern spirit of determination took possession of her. The next day she began the study of elocution from a lady who .had once been an accomplished actress. Then she worked harder than ever to master all the phases of the woman question, and finally she undertook to learn astronomy and to learn it as thoroughly as was possible, with the view of making her living by teaching it and delivering popular lectures upon some of its wonders. She had gone to Professor Symonds, who had a well-furnished observatory, and she had become his pupil. Five years of unremitting labor had made her an accomplished astronomer, so that the old professor, her teacher, boasted of her as the best pupil lie had ever had. About that time her father died. He had been as good as his word, and had left his entire estate to his wife. Although Mrs. Meadows was perfectly willing to be THEODORA DECIDES. 151 at the expense of Rachel's maintenance, the girl would hear of nothing of the kind. She declared that she was perfectly able to support herself, and that she intended to do so. She at once announced in a neighboring city a course of lectures on astronomy, in which the great members of the solar system, as well as the laws that govern their motions, were to be described in accordance with the principles of the highest science. These were delivered, and being well illustrated with apparatus, diagrams, and stereopticon pictures, proved remarkably successful. Indeed, her lecture on the Sun received complimentary notices from several eminent astrono- mers, both in this country and in Europe. Then she travelled throughout the United States and Canada, at- tended only by her maid, and preceded by her man of business, received everywhere with respect, and making a solid reputation and an ample pecuniary profit. The year previous to her introduction to the reader she had been induced to prepare a couple of lectures on the woman question, and to start out on a crusade for the purpose of influencing public opinion in favor of the de- mands that a few progressive members of the sex were advancing. This campaign, however, had not resulted so well as the other. She found her own sex indifferent to the subject of their rights, and this fact interfered very materially with the size of her audiences. It was at one of these lectures that the Hon. Tom Burton had first met her. Rachel's efforts to get her own living in a respectable way had, as is usual in similar cases, been accompanied by slights from many of her fashionable friends. The idea that one of their set should descend to anything partak- ing of the character of work was an insult to their par- / 152 A STKONG-MIKDED WOMAN. venu souls that was not to be forgiven. Her position, so far as the age and respectability of her family were concerned, was not excelled by that of any other person in the city of New York. Her father was a direct de- scendant of that Baron Maedu who, in conjunction with others of his peers, had brought King John of England to terms, and her mother was a Pelham. Yet Miss Sorby, whose grandfather had driven a custom-house cart, and whose grandmother had kept an apple-stand in the Bowery, turned up her aristocratic little nose or rather added to the inclination toward the stars that Nature had given it whenever Rachel's name was mentioned in her presence. And Miss Boggs, whose own father had begun life as the deck-hand of a ferry-boat, looked out of her carriage, with its armorial bearings, and gazed at her former acquaintance with a stony stare that would have done honor to Stoozjunkare. Rachel, however, cared little for the slights of such people. She was entirely capable of holding her own in the great battle of life, and to give blows as well as to receive them. She therefore went about her work with that assiduity and independence of character which could not but attract the attention of many worthy and influential people. She was not very extravagant in her demands for the recognition of her sex, and on several points she had been convinced against her will, or rather had imagined herself convinced, till she had had time to reflect fully on the subjects, and then doubts had arisen that, like Banquo's ghost, would not go down. And though she had acted with the " United Women of America," she had done so not because her heart was in the work, but because the hearts of several of her best friends were in it, and she did not care to desert them. THEODORA DECIDES. 153 But her heart was in all that concerned the education of women in contradistinction to those points that were related to their so-called political rights. She thought that woman should be allowed to do anything in the way of getting her livelihood, or of mental improvement, that she chose to do, though she recognized the fact that some occupations and some studies were better suited to her than others. But this was, she contended, a matter of which woman alone should be the judge. If she under- took work for which she was not qualified, the world would very soon find it out. She had the right to make the trial unrestrained by legal or social restrictions. If she failed, so much the worse for her ; if she succeeded, fresh fields for labor were opened to her, and she and society would in the end be the gainers. It was with such feelings that she had undertaken the work of organizing the " Martha Washington Medical College for Women." She had succeeded in getting together a fairly good faculty, in which men and women were in about equal proportions. The professorship of physiology had, however, been very unsatisfactorily filled, and she had for several months been on the look- out for somebody who could perform the duties of the chair with more credit and usefulness than the existing incumbent, who was only holding on till a successor should be found. Then Rachel had read an account in the Journal of Physiological Science of Theodora's ex- periments in evolution and in regard to the velocity of the nerve-force. Inquiry had resulted in the discovery of the fact that the author was now the wife of Mr. Geoffrey Moultrie, the wealthy and distinguished gentle- man who had done more than any other man in the country to subjugate the forces of nature and to over- 154 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. come the physical obstacles that impede the advance of civilization. She knew that Mrs. Moultrie was one of the most fashionable women of the city of New York, and for a while she despaired of obtaining her aid tow- ard the furtherance of medical instruction for women. Moreover, she came to the conclusion that since her mar- riage Mrs. Moultrie had given up all scientific studies, and that, therefore, her heart could not have been very deeply in her work. At first she thought she would ascertain for herself by a personal interview just how matters stood, and then her natural timidity for, not- withstanding the fact that she could face an audience from the rostrum, she never did so without fear and trembling stood in the way, and she resolved that it would be better to bring the subject before the board of trustees, and to appoint Mrs. Moultrie to the chair with- out further ceremony. There could not possibly be any grounds for offence by such a procedure, and the reci- pient of the honor would decide for herself, uninfluenced by extraneous solicitations. The letter announcing Theodora's election had been sent on the afternoon of the day on which the committee of the " United Women of America" had presented themselves at Moultrie's meeting, and at which Rachel had advocated the claims of her sex to political advance- ment. The views expressed by Moultrie had quite effectually dissipated any idea she may have had that his wife would accept the appointment tendered her. Al- though he had said nothing definite, she was irresistibly led to the conclusion, by what he did not say, that he was opposed to the entrance of women into any domain hith- erto regarded as exclusively appertaining to the male sex. It was with great surprise and delight, therefore, that THEODORA DECIDES. 155 she had received, on the morning of the election, Theo- dora's answer of acceptance, with a request for an early interview. She would have called at once had not mat- ters of immediate importance engaged her attention. These, connected as they were with her retirement from the executive committee of the " United Women of America," kept her busy all that day, and it was there- fore not until the following afternoon that she was able to visit Theodora at her residence. Theodora had thought very seriously of the whole sub- ject since her conversation with Lai of the night before. She had, when they parted, nearly made up her mind to recall her letter of acceptance, even if such an act should lay her open to the charge of instability. It seemed to her, then, that the happiness of herself and her husband hung in the balance, and that persistence in her under- taking would tilt the beam on the wrong side. But when she awoke in the morning she found the reasons for acceptance as strong in her mind as they had ever been, and those against it greatly weakened in force and vividness. She watched Moultrie with all the keenness that women situated as was she bring to bear on their perceptive faculties, and she could see no signs of dis- content with the choice she had made. Indeed, he sev- eral times alluded to the subject, extolling her flow of language, her knowledge of the subject she was to teach a knowledge that was not, as he said, obtained altogether from books, but which had been acquired by her own observations and experiments, and predicting for her a success such as no woman had ever yet obtained in the domain of physiology. He bade her remember how on the revival of letters and of learning women had taken a position among the 156 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. very foremost ; how they had taught theology, and had brought converts by the thousand into the bosom of the Church ; how they had indulged in controversies with learned doctors of the opposite sex, whom they had often put to confusion ; how they had publicly supported theses on doctrinal subjects ; how they had filled chairs of phi- losophy, law, and medicine in great universities ; how they had talked in Latin before the popes, and written excellent verses in good Greek. " I should not be at all surprised, my dear Theodora," he had said to her, from the depths of his dressing-room, "if you become in medical teaching what the young JBolognese young lady was in law. Perhaps you are familiar with the instance. It is very fresh in my own mind, because I only learned of it yesterday. I am studying up in all matters relating to women, for I may be called upon to make a speech in Congress on the sub- ject, and a display of learning has an immense effect in that body. "Well, this young woman' ' here there was a spluttering and a splashing of water, as though he were being drowned, and it was several seconds before he re- covered his breath sufficiently to go on. " As I was say- ing," he at length resumed, "this young woman, who appears to have flourished during the thirteenth century, devoted herself to the study of the Latin language and of the laws. At the age of twenty-three she pronounced a funeral oration rather a bad beginning, I think in Latin in the Cathedral of Bologna, that was regarded as the most astonishing piece of oratory of the time. At the age of twenty-six she took the degree of Doctor of Laws, and began publicly to expound the Institutes of Justinian, and at thirty her great reputation caused her to be appointed to a professorship, and she taught law to THEODORA DECIDES. 157 large classes of students from all parts of the civilized world. She joined the charms and accomplishments of a woman to all the knowledge of a man. But such, adds the chronicler, was the power of her eloquence, that her beauty was only admired when her tongue was silent. I am sorry to say," he added, after another series of splash - ings, " that her name is not given." She was astounded. Was he laughing at her ? For a moment she felt inclined to be a little indignant, but then she reflected that he saw the humorous side of many subjects that he regarded seriously, and that a bantering tone was with him no indication of a lack of grave ap- preciation. " The instance is an unfortunate one, I am afraid," she said, laughing. " If such good looks as I have are only to be noticed when I am not lecturing, please, sir, keep away from me when I am at the college. And as to her name : if she had been a man the whole world would, even at this day, have known it. Unfortunately, all the printing-presses were in the hands of men, and they made no record of this prodigy's name." " Ah, my dear, there I have you !" he exclaimed. " This young woman, you will please to remember, flour- ished in the thirteenth century, and printing was not in- vented till the fifteenth. Some women, jealous of her distinction, obliterated all traces of her name, though they were not able to suppress the records of her deeds. But, then, there was Modesta di Pozzo di Zozzi, and Cassandra Fidele, and Giulia Frivulzio, and Spotta JSTogarolla, and " " For Heaven's sake, Geoffrey, where did you pick up all those names ?' ' exclaimed Theodora, as he came into her room, partly dressed. " Are you making fun of 158 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. me," she continued, in a more serious tone, " or are you merely trying to astonish me with your learning ?" " As I said, I have been reading up for my speech. Fancy the looks of admiration and awe that will over- spread the faces of the honorable members from Hemp- field, and Pitt's Four Corners, and Pig-in-a-Poke when I rattle off those names as readily as though I had known them all my life ! Laughing at you, Dory ! My dear child, I may laugh at you sometimes, but not in connec- tion with so weighty a matter as your professorship. " " But you have apparently been giving me reasons for accepting, and at the same time speaking of the subject as though it were all a joke." " My dear Dory," said Moultrie, " I thought I made it clear to you the other day how seriously I regarded the matter, and that it is one that you must decide for yourself. I then told you that I would support you loy- ally in the decision you made, and I am now beginning to do so. If I show more than my usual hilarity in my attempts to sustain you in your new role, you must at- tribute it to the fact that I feel cheerful and contented with what you have done." " Then you advise me to accept. Oh, Geoffrey, if you would only say that you do, my doubts would all be removed !" " But 1 cannot advise you to accept, my dear. If I were to give my advice, it would be not to accept ; but this is one of those things that I think should be abso- lutely left to your own judgment. I know what your inclinations are, and 1 should be very unhappy if they did not have full opportunity to be gratified. But why discuss the question again ? It is settled finally, and you are Professor of Physiology in the i Martha Washington THEODORA DECIDES. 159 Medical College for Women.' It is already unfait ac- compli, and 1 wish you all the success which I am con- fident you will deserve." ' ' I could resign. ' ' " If you were to resign from conviction that you had committed an error in accepting, that would be one thing. Your resignation to oblige me would be quite another thing." " But there may be some points that you see and that I do not see, and if you were to explain to me, would convince me that I had committed an error. Oh, Geof- frey, is it not a part of your duty to guide me when I come to you, as I do now, and ask you to aid me to de- cide aright ? You are older than 1, you know the world more thoroughly, and, above all else, you know your own heart. If I thought that, by taking this place, 1 should lose one jot or tittle of your affection, do you think I would ever enter the college ? What are professorships or colleges, or the whole female sex to me compared to your love ? Geoffrey, my husband, tell me what I am to do !" She threw her arms around his neck, and buried her face in his breast. " You are all the world to me," she said, as he kissed her head, and drew her to him ; " I am in distress, and I come to you in my trouble. Help me !" For a moment the words were on his lips, " Let the college go to the devil, and stay with me !" but it was only for a moment, and again in his own loving but de- termined way he hardened his heart against an appeal that was almost agonizing in its intensity. He knew that she wished to take the professorship, and he was resolved that she should submit to no sacrifice of herself in the matter. He was very obstinate when he had once made 160 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. up his mind to any particular course, and sometimes be- came blinded, or at least indifferent, to all influences that were against any decision he might have made. Doubt- less this characteristic had been of vast service to him in the conduct of the great engineering works he had ac- complished. He had great faith in himself. In regard to the question before him, he had grave doubts of the advisability of his wife's acceptance. The idea of her appearing in public as a lecturer, even though only be- fore a class composed of members of her own sex, was unpleasant to him, and the knowledge that the perform- ance of her duties would necessarily divide her sympa- thies and create in her interests different from those that personally concerned him, was painful. He had known all along that the simple statement of his wish, that she should refuse the proposition of the trustees of the med- ical college, would be sufficient for her ; but he thought he knew equally well that in such a case she would ex- perience ceaseless regret, and he could not bring himself to speak words that would convey the idea that he was unduly exercising his authority. If there was any sacri- fice to be made, he intended himself to be the victim, not the woman whom he loved better than himself. But now she had, as it were, thrown herself at his feet, and implored him to put his foot on her neck. No abnegation of self could have been more profound than hers, no sacrifice more complete. She was already a marytr in spite of him, for no material sacrifice could cost her more pain than the mental immolation she was now suffering. Yet, somehow or other, he failed to comprehend the grandness of her heroism, or, even in its entirety, the helplessness that had characterized her ap- peal. He could not dissociate in his mind her self- THEODORA DECIDES. 161 denial and reliance on him with her longing to get once more into the traces of the student and the lecturer. He did not question the sincerity with which she had plead with him, hut he did doubt her thorough understanding of herself. He was fully persuaded that, were she through his influence to give up the idea of teaching in a medical college, the time would come when, if she did not openly, she would in her heart, reproach him for any mental inaction or regrets that she might suffer. Strange that he did not see that in her supplication to him for help she had placed herself entirely under his guidance, and had made him responsible for all the results of his failure to give her the aid she asked, and which, as her husband, he had no right to refuse ! Had she come to him of her own accord, and said, " I prefer you to all the colleges in the world. My interest is in you, is one and indivisible. 1 am convinced that a married woman has her own home to supervise, and not the education of other women ; that if she attempts both, one or the other will suffer, and I, therefore, have decided to re- fuse the appointment, " he would have rejoiced beyond measure. But she had never said this, or anything like it ; on the contrary, he knew very well and she did not deny it that she was wrapped up in her studies in physi- ology, and that she would be delighted to teach ; and that however much she might be willing to be guided by him and this he did not doubt any action of his looking to her resignation would be a disappointment to her, to be borne cheerfully and loyally, doubtless, but nevertheless a disappointment, even though she was now unconscious of the liability to any such result. Besides, he had thought that, as a mere matter of sound policy that would eventuate in good to both him and her, 162 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. it would be better that she should make the attempt to, as it were, serve two masters. No lessons were so effec- tive as those of personal experience. She would find out for herself, and no great harm could be done by the ex- periment. But yet, never had he been so greatly moved as by the few simple words she had addressed to him. Here was one woman, at least, that loved her husband, and was willing anxious, to give up her most cherished desire to please him, or even at his dictation, whether reasonable or unreasonable. He had never loved her so fondly as at that moment. For, like most men of tender and loving hearts, though he did not desire that a woman should sacrifice herself for him, he did desire that she should be willing to do so. His own wife had shown her- self equal to the emergency, and, so far as he could be- stow it, she should receive her reward. In all that he had said relative to the success of women in the domain of learning, and of his confidence in her abilities, he had said what he believed to be true, and he said it honestly, in order to encourage her to do her best, and to remove from her mind any lingering idea that might lurk there that he did not yield a hearty support to her wishes. Still, he could not, without doing violence to his principles, advise her to accept. He felt that to do so was entirely beyond his power ; but while he was thus prohibited by strong conscientious scruples from taking an active part for or against the proposed meas- ure, he was equally strongly determined not only that he would interpose no obstacles, but that he would do all in his power to make her path clear, and to give her all the moral and physical aid she might require. " My darling," he said, when she had finished her in- vocation to him, and was standing trembling in his arms, THEODORA DECIDES. 163 u there is nothing you are ever likely to do that could lessen the hold that you have on my heart. If I knew of anything that could come between us if I thought for one moment that your acceptance of this professorship would endanger our love, then it would be my duty to speak, not only to give you my advice, but to beg you to refuse the appointment. Now, my dear child," he con- tinued, smiling, " I see that I must exercise the little authority which the laws of the State of New York and the customs of good society have left to a husband. It is my will and pleasure that you shall do in this matter exactly as you wish, acting entirely from the impulse of your own heart, controlled only by your own reason. If you wish to please me, you will do this without further discussion, rememberiDg that I shall always be ready to assist you faithfully to the utmost of my ability. Now, then, as 1 am scarcely in a fit condition to appear at the breakfast-table, perhaps you will allow me to finish my toilet." No more was said, and Theodora made up her mind that the Polish ancestor of Tyscovus knew little of any other man than himself. That afternoon Rachel Meadows called. The conference was eminently satisfactory. All the details of the matter were fully explained, and it was arranged that Theodora should on the following day visit the college on a tour of observation, and that her lectures should begin on the twentieth of the month. CHAPTEE IX. A JOKE OR A CRIME ? MRS. SINCOTE had one peculiarity, which, while it some- times gave pleasure to herself and others, more frequently caused annoyance to all concerned, and sometimes real distress. She was fond of practical jokes when she was the perpetrator. A pleased victim has never yet been observed, except in those rare cases in which jocose old gentlemen have presented their scapegrace sons or neph- ews with large family Bibles, with the admonition to 4 ( search the Scriptures, ' ' which doing after several years of continued ungodliness they have found to contain one hundred dollar notes between every two leaves. Or those other still rarer subjects, physicians or lawyers, per- haps, whose patients or clients indignantly refuse to pay the moderate honoraria suggested, but who shy a stock- ing or a night-cap at the " sawbones" or " limb of the law," exclaiming, " There, you murderer," or, " There, you shark, take that !" and which on being explored is found to contain a check for five or ten thousand dollars. Or those superlatively rare instance; in which an infatu- ated lover is led by his Dulcinea to believe that she is de- votedly attached to his rival, and who one day receives a note requesting him to call immediately at the lady's house on business of great importance, and who going, finds her dressed in bridal array, surrounded by her family, and the parson present, with book in hand, and A JOKE OR A CRIME ? 165 only waiting his arrival to begin the ceremony that is to unite him to his jovial mistress, who all the time has been dead in love with him, and has been studying his character, when he has thought himself overwhelmed with misfortune. Moultrie had tried with his usual persistency to break her of this habit, but had only so far succeeded as to secure immunity for himself and the members of his in- dividual family. She therefore understood that he, his wife, and daughter were sacred, and that if she ventured upon any annoying " pleasantry" in his household she would feel the effects of his displeasure. He had ex- tended his positive prohibition to the practice being in- dulged in at all ; but as he was not ubiquitous or omnis- cient, she felt herself entirely safe to perpetrate her tricks upon the unwary, not even sparing her own mother and daughter. The morning after the election she had gone to Moul- trie's to congratulate him on his success, a full account of which she had read in the morning papers. The dow- ager did not feel equal to the work of going out so early in the day, but sent a very loving letter to her son, in which she gave full expression to her feelings, and in- dulged the hope that he felt a due sense of the responsi- bility that had been laid on his shoulders. When Mrs. Sincote arrived Moultrie and his wife and daughter were still at the breakfast-table. Instead of at once going into the room where they were assembled, she announced to the servant that she would first go up to Theodora's boudoir, in order to take a look at a por- trait of Moultrie that had come home from the artist the day before. She accordingly ascended the staircase to the next floor, and having sufficiently examined and ad- 166 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. mired the portrait, which stood on an easel in front of the chair which Theodora usually occupied when she was reading or was at leisure, she started to go down-stairs. On her way she passed by the open door of Lalage's room, and without stopping to think, or, perhaps, with the consciousness that she had the freedom of the house, she entered the apartment, and gave a glance around at its luxurious furniture and arrangements. Almost at once her attention was attracted by a letter that lay on the table, and that was directed in Lalage's handwriting to " John Tyscovus, Esq., Planters' House, St. Louis, Mo. ' ' It w r as the letter that lie had requested Lai to write, and that she had left unsealed, in order that she might give him the latest intelligence of her father and his movements, that she had intended to get at breakfast, and add in a postscript. Now, Julia Sincote was not a dishonorable woman at that particular time, although, perhaps, not an over- scrupulous one. She picked up the letter, read the superscription, and then laid it down again, experiencing no temptation to pry any further into its character. If she could have obtained a knowledge of its contents without being obliged to descend to the meanness of opening and reading it, she would doubtless have been glad. But she felt no desire to do so at such an ex- pense to her sense of decency and propriety as she would have thereby incurred. She sighed, however, as she thought of her love for the man to whom the letter was directed, and then she turned away. Or, rather, she was just in the act of turning away when she saw close to the letter an open sheet contain- ing writing. Supposing it to be an exercise or a com- position, she took it up and began to read it. Of course A JOKE OR A CRIME? 167 a scrupulous woman, or one with the fine sense of deli- cacy that Julia Sincote, from her breeding and associa- tions, ought to have possessed, would have 110 more thought of reading an open writing not specially in- tended for her eye than she would one enclosed in an envelope. Now, as we know, Lai had, after Theodora's visit of the previous night, set herself to work at her letter to Tyscovus and to the copying of a page from her treasured book, as was her custom. She was a very methodical and practical young woman, and to have omitted any part of her daily routine of work would have caused her no inconsiderable amount of unpleasant feeling. She had, therefore, accomplished her task, although it was long after midnight when she got through and laid her- self down to sleep. It was this sheet, containing the ex- tract from the book, which Julia Sincote had in her hand, and which she began to read. It was a sheet of note- paper, such as all the other extracts had been written on, and of the same kind as that Lai used in her correspond- ence. When the work was completed, she would, she thought, have all the sheets bound together in handsome style, and then she intended to present the volume to Tyscovus. As the reader knows, this was the three hun- dred and tenth page, and there were only nine more, and then her work would be done. As Julia Sincote read, a strange expression passed over her face ; but she went on, apparently fascinated with the knowledge she was receiving. When she had finished, she laid the sheet upon the table though she still held it between her fingers while she stood almost breathless with amazement at what she had perused. Again she examined the sheet, and then suddenly she 168 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. burst into a laugh that was almost loud enough to have been heard by the people in the breakfast-room. " 1574 !" she exclaimed " three hundred years ago. Why, it's only an extract from that precious book of hers, which she keeps so religiously under lock and key ; and the date ' November 16th' this very day three hundred years ago! It would be a good joke," she continued; "I think I will do it." She stood for a moment, as though undecided whether or not to follow the sug- gestion. Then, with a little heightened color, as though blushing for the remote possibilities of her act, she dip- ped her pen into the ink and changed the figure " 5" of the year-date to an " 8," so that it was " 1874." Then she took the letter from the envelope and replaced it with the sheet, which she folded in exactly the same manner. The letter she held in her hand for a few moments, apparently in doubt as to what disposition to make of it. Finally, without unfolding it, she placed it between the leaves of a photograph-alburn that lay on the table, and fastening the clasps, left the room, well satisfied with the success that had attended her opera- tions. On the stairs she met Lai age, who was coming up in some degree of haste. " Oh, Aunt Julia !" cried Lai, " is that you ? I did not know you were in the house. ' ' " I came in a few moments ago, and stole up-stairs quietly to take a private look at your father's portrait. It is an excellent likeness, as well as a lovely work of art." " Yes, it is very much like him. I am only going to get a letter ; I will be down again in a moment." Lalage was so quick in her movement that she and Mrs. Sincote entered the breakfast-room together. After A JOKE OR A CRIME? 169 a few words of greeting and congratulation between the latter and her brother and his wife, Lai produced her letter. " I will go into the library, father," she said, " and write what you have just told me." " And then," laughed Moultrie, " the postscript, as is so often the case with women's letters, will be the most important part. Perhaps you would not object if I wrote a little note to Tyscovus and put it into the en- velope with your letter." " Not at all, father ; 1 think that would be very nice, and that John will be glad to get a letter from you." " Yery well, my dear. Then I will go with you and write it at once." The two left the room together. Julia, though try- ing to seem interested in what Theodora was talking about, had her attention mainly directed toward the ad- joining room, as if expecting every moment that her joke would be detected. She was arranging in her rnind the details of the defence she should be obliged to make, for now the consequences of her folly loomed up in large proportions before her, and she was quite sure that not only would Lai be indignant, but that Moultrie, finding that his most solemn injunctions relative to practical joking with members of his family had been disregarded, and that, too, in a manner so indelicate, would cause her to feel the effects of his wrath in a way that would be unpleasant to her. Several times she was on the point of going into the library, acknowledging her act, and asking forgiveness ; but the fear of Moultrie, and the fact that she would be obliged to admit that she had tampered with a letter not her own, restrained her. Yes, she 8 170 A STKONG-MINDED WOMAN. would wait, she thought, till the explosion came, and then she would get out of the scrape as well as she could. But to her surprise there was no explosion. Every- thing seemed to be going on quietly. Finally she heard Moul trie say, " Now, my dear, put that with your letter. It will probably give him a clearer idea of the political situation than anything you can write." There was a short pause, and then Moultrie and Lai came from the room, the latter having the letter in her hand. It was closed. Evidently she had not read the sheet which had been substituted for her own, and Julia perceived that unless she spoke at once the deception would not be dis- covered till Tyscovus received the letter. But she was now terribly frightened. She had not supposed for a moment that the matter could go so far without discov- ery. Her joke had succeeded beyond her most sanguine expectations, and she saw that unless she revealed imme- diately the nature of the deception she had practised, it bid fair to become a serious affair, arid possibly one reach- ing the proportions of a tragedy. Lai stood with the let- ter in her hand ; Moultrie was talking with Theodora about some arrangements for the day. He was bidding her good-by ; he approached Lai and kissed her. " "Will you mail my letter for me, please ?" she said. He took it, and still holding it in his hand, said " good-morn- ing" to Julia, and left the room. " Don't put it into your pocket," Lai called after him. "If you do you will forget it." She followed him out into the hall, and stood by him while he put on his overcoat and gloves. Julia joined them ; she had made up her mind to confess all, and to throw herself on the mercy of her brother and niece. Lai had retaken possession of the letter while A JOKE OR A CRIME ? 171 Moultrie was drawing on his gloves. u Kow," she said, as he finished, and reached out his hand for the missive, " you will please to keep this in sight till you get to the letter-box. Hold it right so," she continued, raising his hand till it was on a level with his eyes, " and then you will be sure to see it." He laughed and turned toward the door. Now was Julia's last chance. The word " Stop !" was OH her lips, her vocal organs were ar- ranged for its enunciation, her chest inflated to give it emphasis, her hand raised for the accompanying gesture, when suddenly, as though it were a flash of lightning, an idea swept through her mind with a force and a vividness that almost stunned her. For a moment it seemed to her as though her heart had stopped beating ; then her hand fell to her side, a great sigh escaped her, and she sank, as though utterly exhausted, to a chair that stood by her side. Then she heard the front door close, and Lai saying something to her in accents of alarm. She roused herself and looked about her. He was gone. It was too late now to stop him, even had she wished, and confession was out of the question, for fhe first seed of dishonor had been planted in her mind. " It is nothing," she said in answer to Lai's inquiries ; " I felt a little faint for a moment. It must have been because 1 drank no coffee this morning. Please don't trouble yourself, ' ' as Lai made a motion as though going for assistance. " It is all over. I will go into the library for a moment. Then, if you will order me a cup of tea it will be all that I shall require." Lai walked by her aunt's side till she saw her seated in a large arm-chair, and then ringing the bell, gave direc- tions to the servant in regard to the tea, " Don't wait," said Mrs. Sincote. " You have your 172 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. studies to attend to, and I think I heard Mrs. Bowdoin go up-stairs a moment ago." She was anxious to get Lai out of the way. She wanted to think, and the presence of the woman she had wronged interfered with the easy course of her thoughts. Lai waited till the tea came, and then, seeing that there was no further need for her presence, left the room. As soon as she was gone Julia began to consider very seriously the immediate and remote possibilities of the situation. Her act, originally intended as a piece of pleasantry to herself and a slight annoyance to her niece, had passed beyond the limits of a joke. It had become a crime, in which there was a certain amount of deliber- ation, and which every moment became more and more of an outrage. The letter was already mailed. It could not be recalled ; she could, of course, confess her guilt, and thus neutralize the consequences of her offence ; but she had already begun to take pleasure in the contem- plation of the possible results, and, at any rate^ so long as she held her tongue, no one would ever know that she had had anything to do with the deception of which two innocent persons would be the victims. And then if the result should be such as she now hoped for, and which, so far as she could perceive, was almost a necessity of the position of affairs, would it not be well worth all the mental suffering she might be called upon to endure ? She had never before attempted anything of a charac- ter to call a blush to her cheek, and she was not, there- fore, conversant with the feelings of a person accustomed to the perpetration of dishonorable acts. She had a vague idea the result of information from books and plays that the unpleasantness resulting from the prick- ings of conscience became less with each transgression, A JOKE OR A CRIME? 173 and after many repetitions not only was no pain experi- enced, but that a positive pleasure was produced. This process was what she understood by " hardening in crime." Certainly, therefore, she was not a hardened criminal, and yet she did not experience any remorse at the contemplation of what she had done. On the con- trary, her mind now that she had recovered from the immediate effects of the shock due to the conversion of her joke into a crime, to which restoration the two cups of strong tea she had drunk had doubtless materially contributed was well at ease both as regarded herself and the rest of the world. The thought of possible dis- tress to Lai and Tyscovus never occurred to her ; cer- tainly not in any form or to such a degree as to cause her discomfort. That if everything succeeded accord- ing to her hopes there would be disappointment she well knew, accompanied, perhaps, by tears on one side and anger on the other, but that there would be any severe emotional disturbance she did not believe. Lai was young ; she had pledged her faith to Tyscovus when she knew nothing of the world not even her own mind and hence could not be supposed to be capable of very keen suffering from a love-affair with a man from whom she had parted almost as soon as she had made his ac- quaintance, and whom she had not seen for more than two years. As for Tyscovus, she was not prepared to form any very definite conclusions in regard to his probable course on receipt of the false letter. She knew very little of him personally, not having met him more than half a dozen times, and then not being the recipient of any marked attention from him. But she had been struck with his appearance and manner from the very first 174 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. moment that she had laid her eyes upon him, and it was a source of bitter regret to her when she learned, as she did soon afterward, that he was the accepted lover of her niece, then an ignorant and uncouth, though beauti- ful girl. "What he could see in Lai beyond good looks she could not then perceive. Subsequently, though much against her will, she had been forced to acknowl- edge to herself that the girl was possessed of many at- tractions and of some qualities that w r ere calculated to excite in her wholesome feelings of respect and of fear. But to come back to Tyscovus : " What," she asked herself, " will he do when he reads the letter ? Will he indignantly write for an explanation ? Will he hurry on to New York and seek an interview with Lai, or will he, regarding the letter as a finality against which there is no appeal, accept the apparent situation, and preserve a dignified silence toward a woman worthy only of his con- tempt ? If," she thought, " he should write or come, exposure must, of course, be the immediate consequence. Fortunately, there is nothing to implicate me, and they may wonder who is the perpetrator till they grow gray, and never suspect that I had a hand in it. Should he accept his dismissal in silence and remain absent from her, what then ? That requires a good deal of consider- ation. She, finding that he does not come, or even write, will at first be surprised ; then after a little while she will begin to think that he did not receive her let- ter, and she will write again. Then, of course, there will be a clear understanding between them, and all this will come to naught. I don't know how it will end. There are too many contingencies to make it safe to predict. Time alone can show. " But how will it, in any event, benefit me ? Is it at A JOKE OR A CRIME ? 175 all likely that I shall ever see him again ? Ah !" she exclaimed, as an idea occurred to her, " he will be in Washington this next winter, and so will Geoffrey. It would be very easy for me to be there, and in all proba- bility Lai will remain in New York. Yes, it might then be possible." Julia Sincote was by no means a profound woman, but at the same time she was certainly not a fool. While not given to intellectual pursuits of any kind, rarely reading a book that required any considerable ex- ercise of her thinking faculties, she had, by the use of sharp perceptive powers and abundant opportunities for observation, picked up a good stock of knowledge of contemporaneous events and of human nature. More- over, she had for many years indulged in the reading of romances and other works of fiction, the chief interest of which centred upon intricate plots, and in reports of notable trials in various parts of the world in which deep- laid conspiracies were exposed. She had hence become, to a certain extent, familiar with the ways of the perpe- trators and victims of crimes, and could predict with ex- actness what such or such a character would do under the particular fortunate or unfortunate circumstances in which he or she might be placed. She was bringing to bear on the present matter, therefore, a mind trained in the investigations of human nature when surrounded with difficulties and subjected to misfortunes. The fault in her mental processes was that they had been to a great extent constructed upon models that were not those of human nature at all, but of false, morbid, and impossible types, created by writers who mistook their vivid flights of imagination for descriptions of real character and potentiality. She accepted these incongruities of per- 176 A STKONG-MIKDED WOMAN. sons and conduct as actualities, failing to perceive that the creators and writers had scarcely ever been consistent, and that unless they had caused the personages of their stories to do the very things which rational persons would not do, there would have been no ground for continuing to write. She had never, in any of the many true and fictitious plots with which she was familiar, met with two such personages as her niece Lalage and Tyscovus. Neither had she come in contact with their counterparts in real life. But these facts did not disturb her very much. She recalled to mind incidents in several novels which were not essentially different from that which was now the subject of her meditations, and in which the most terrible confusion and disasters had resulted from false letters. In one instance the receiver of a forged letter, purporting to come from the woman he loved, had seized a pistol and blown his brains out. She shuddered a little as she thought of this, but she did not believe Tyscovus was the man to kill himself for the sake of a woman that he believed had deceived him. In another, the man who had, by a fraudulent communication, been brought to the belief that the woman he was about to marry had discarded him, had killed her that he thought had played him false. This was not like Tyscovus. She had no fear for Lai's life. In another, the woman whose false friend had alienated from her the affections of her lover had died gradually of a broken heart. " Well," she thought, " I don't believe Lai is that kind of a girl ; but if she is, and I can gain his love, she must take the consequences." There were many other similar events that had resulted from the misunderstandings of lovers, brought about by A JOKE OE A CRIME? 177 interested parties acting dishonorably, that occurred to her as she sat thinking, her mental activity more than usually developed by the tea she had drunk ; but in none of them had the sufferers been possessed of the strong natures that she had reason to believe were inherent in Tyscovus and her niece. She knew enough of them both to be aware that whatever action either of them took would be marked by decision, honesty, generosity, and firmness, without any element of weakness being present ; but what that action would be she could not determine. As she had said before, time alone could do that ; and for the present all she had to do was to wait patiently and prudently for the consequences. The matter was out of her hands. She had thought the sub- ject over with about as much thoroughness as she was capable of at that time, so she rose languidly from her semi-recumbent position in the deep arm-chair, and was on the point of leaving the room when Lalage entered. " I hope you are better, Aunt Julia," she said. " Yes, you look much better. I came to see if I could find the copy I made last night from my book. I left it on the table in my room, but it is not there now, and I thought I might have brought it down-stairs this morning with my letter. No, it is not here," she continued, as she looked among the books and bric-d-brac on the library- table. " I cannot imagine what has become of it." " Did you ask Mary ? Perhaps she moved it when she arranged your room." " I asked her, but she says she did not touch it. She never disturbs my table. She does not even dust it ; I do that myself." " It may have blown out of the window. There was quite a high wind when I came in." 178 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. 44 Yes, that is quite likely. I opened all the windows when I came down. And now I think of it, I did not see it when I went up for my letter." " Was it of any great consequence ?" " Oh, no ; I can easily copy it over again." A strange fascination, such as is sometimes seen in per- sons who feel irresistibly impelled to visit the places where their crimes have been committed, or to talk of incidents connected with them, took possession of Julia. Although she knew that the exhibition of any unwonted degree of interest in what, after all, was, so far as Lai was aware, a trivial matter concerning only herself, would be liable to excite suspicion against her, she could not refrain from plying her niece with question after question relative to the matter the size of the sheet, the kind of paper, the exact position it occupied on the table, whether it was open or folded, and a dozen others of no importance, but the answers to which she knew as well as did Lai. And then there came another, also unnecessary, and which, if there had been any suspicion of her duplicity, might have led, by the agitation she ex- hibited, to her discovery. " What was it about ?" she asked ; " something very amusing, I suppose." " Oh, no, it was not in the least amusing. Indeed, it was very sad ; but you could not understand it unless you knew all about what took place before. It was a letter written by a lady to a son of Count John Tyscovi- cius, who was the great ancestor of Mr. Tyscovus. ' ' Now, although Julia was perfectly conversant with the subject-matter of the letter, she knew nothing what- ever of the circumstances under which it had been writ- ten. She had never even so much as seen the little A JOKE OR A CRIME? 179 book from which the extract had been made, though, as it was a family matter, she knew the history of it, its general character, and the manner in which it had come into Lai's possession. Here, then, was an opportunity not only for ascertaining the causes that had led to the orig- inal letter being written, but also for discovering how Tyscovus's ancestor had acted when he received it. "Surely it might," she thought, "be reasonably sup- posed that the descendant would act in a similar manner under like circumstances. And what a wonderful fact," she continued to herself, " that three hundred years to a day after the original had been sent to the ancestor a copy should be sent to the descendant!" Julia had heard something of history repeating itself, but she had never heard of such an exact duplication as this, and she really began to feel a sort of pride in her connection with so remarkable an event. " Now, my dear," she said, settling herself again in the deep arm-chair, " I am not in a hurry this morning, and you can surely give me a few minutes of your time, in which to tell me all about this letter. I have a sort of a presentiment that it is a very interesting story. Sit down there," pointing as she spoke to a low chair near her ; " make yourself comfortable, and tell me the whole story of that letter from first to last. " Lai smiled at her aunt's eagerness. She glanced at the clock on the mantel- piece ; " I can give just ten minutes, Aunt Julia," she said. "It is a very sad story, but it is good for us sometimes to hear such things ; and if you would really like to know about the letter, why, I will tell you." " Yes, I wish to know all about it. I am very cheerful this morning, and though I am not one of those morbid individuals who are never happy unless they are miser- 180 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. able, a little sadness to-day would be quite acceptable. So go on, dear." " Count John Tyscovicius," said Lai, " had a son also named John, and he was about to marry the Countess Louisa Karpinski, when he was arrested and thrown into prison on suspicion of conspiring against the State. He was not guilty of the crime with which he was charged, but he was kept confined in a dungeon and loaded with chains for more than a year before he was let out. " Just before he was put in jail he parted with the Countess Louisa as he thought only for a few days ; but that night he was taken from his bed by soldiers and carried to the prison. The countess sent him word that she would be faithful to him,. though he might be kept there all his life, and this thought gave him courage to endure the cruel treatment he received, and to make him long to get out. ' ' But just as his innocence was about to be shown, and he was already being treated better than he had been, he received a letter from the Countess Louisa which for a while almost made him wish he was dead. That was the letter I copied, and I suppose I will now have to do it all over again. ' ' " How very interesting!" said Julia. " But, my dear, what did she write that was so horrible ? Of course she did not give him up in the midst of his suf- ferings ? No true woman would have done that." "No," exclaimed Lai ; " no woman but one whose heart was full of falsehood or whose mind was very weak would have done such a thing, and for a while Count John could not believe that she had written it ; but it was in her handwriting, and signed with her name. But shall I read you the letter ?" she continued, taking the A JOKE OR A CRIME? 181 little vellum-bound volume from the bosom of her gown. " Then you will see what a wicked letter it was oh, yes, what a very wicked letter !" Mrs. Sincote expressed her intense anxiety to hear the letter read. Her interest was excited beyond measure. " 'NOVEMBER 16, 15Y4. " ' DEAR JOHN : It is with a heart full of sorrow,' " Lai read, " ' that I write this letter. How little we know our own souls, even when we think we know them best ! You were my first friend ; the recollection of your good- ness to me when I was in sore trouble can never fade from my memory ; I would rather die than cause you pain, and yet I must speak the truth, even though we both suffer more than we have ever suffered in all our lives before. You yourself, even though you may blame me now, will erelong admit that I am right ; for you are a lover of the truth. " ' I thought I loved you with all rny soul ; for when I parted with you, more than two years ago, I felt as though I were leaving behind me all that I valued on earth. But now that I have had time to search my heart, I discover to my dismay that it was not love that filled it, but only a great regard, such as one friend might feel for another. Remember how ignorant I was ; how little I knew of the world, and forgive me any pain that this declaration may cause you. " l We may never meet again ; but whether we do or not, be always my friend, as I am yours. L.' ' " And what did he do when he received the letter ?" said Julia, leaning forward in her chair, with anxiety depicted on her countenance. 182 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. " For a while it goes on to say here he sat in his cell without saying a word. He was just like a person in a trance. He was going to be released the very next day, and then he expected to marry the woman who was now so false. Everybody that has ever borne the name of Tyscovus or Tyscovicius, as it was then, has been good and noble," continued Lai, her face suffused with pride, " and this one was a brave and generous man, who could not do a low act. But he did a foolish one, as the book says." " What did he do ? I am all anxiety to know." " Countess Louisa Karpinski had one aunt, a widow, who was very beautiful but very wicked." " Go on !" cried Julia, in a husky voice, as Lai stop- ped for a moment. " Yes, she was very wicked, for she was in love with Count John herself, and she wrote him a letter, telling him how false the Countess Louisa was, and how she had endeavored to prevent her writing that letter ; and she had all the time been trying to persuade the Countess Louisa to marry another man, the Count Stephen Os- karof." Julia had risen to her feet, and was walking the floor with an agitated manner that gave ample evidence of the effect that the story was producing upon her. " What did he do ?" she said, approaching Lai, who was busy turning over the leaves of the book, and who had apparently taken no notice of the excitement dis- played by her aunt. " Will you never come to it ?" " In one moment, aunt ; I am coming to it. For a long time," she continued, "he sat without saying a word. Then he read the letter over again. i She thought she loved me with all her soul,' he said. ' Per- A JOKE OR A CRIME? 183 haps she really did, but her soul is so small that it takes very little love to fill it. ' Then he walked the floor of his prison, for his chains had been taken off, and he had been given a large room, and it happened that he glanced into a looking-glass that hung on the wall, and there he saw that his hair and beard, which had been very black, had become as white as snow." " How horrible !" exclaimed Julia. " How much he must have suffered ! But what did he do ?" " The next day he was released from prison, and there at the door, waiting for him in a splendid sleigh, with costly robes to keep him warm, was the treacherous aunt. At first she did not know him, for his hair and beard were entirely white, and his face had a sad look that she had never seen there before. But she took him to her castle, and nursed him till he got well and strong, all the time pitying him on account of the bad way in which he had been treated by the Countess Louisa. And she was so kind, and her sympathy was so sweet to him, that he thought he would marry her ; for although he liked her very much he did not yet love her. " But she began to feel badly about what she had done ; she felt that she had committed a great sin, and that she must ask forgiveness of God for her wickedness. And she was very wicked," continued Lai, her own in- terest deepening as she went on, and her manner becom- ing more animated, " much worse, Aunt Julia, than you think, and as you will find out directly. So she ordered her sleigh, and went off over the plain, ten miles or more, to a monastery, where there was a good man she knew. She got there, and saw the good man, and told him what she had done everything. He was very angry, but very sorry, too, and he told her that he could not ask God to 184 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. forgive her till she had shown by her works that she re- pented. Then he commanded her not to go home, but to go to a convent near by, and to stay there and fast and pray for five days, and then to come to him again, and he would help her to undo all the wrong she had done. She left him, promising that she would do all he had ordered. But no sooner was she out of his sight than she changed her mind, and resolved that, no matter what happened, she would marry Count John the next day, as had been arranged. Well, she got into her sleigh and wrapped herself up in her warm robes, and told the driver to go home to her castle as fast as he could. It was night, but the moon was shining so brightly on the snow that it was almost like day. On they went like the wind, and then suddenly she heard a single bark of a wolf, and then in an instant another, and then almost at once a thousand barks from wolves that seemed to spring up from the snow all around them. The driver plunged his horses through those that were in front of him, and lashed them with his whip ; and though he was closely followed by the starving wolves, he got back to the castle gate just as his horses fell dead. He turned to help his mistress out of the sleigh, and then he found, to his horror, that she was not there. The wolves had dragged her out and eaten her, and he, in the noise and confusion, did not know it till then. The following day they found her bones and her clothing scattered over the plain." " Oh, how shocking !" cried Julia, covering her face with her hands, as though to shut out the image of the perfidious aunt being torn to pieces by wolves. " Yes, it was very shocking ; but the worst is to come." " Worse than that ! Did Count John kill himself ?" A JOKE OR A CRIME? 185 Lai was a natural-born story-teller. She had carefully kept back the acme for its proper place at the end, and had skilfully concealed certain facts which, but for her method, would have lessened the interest of her listener. But the crisis was now to come. " Worse and better. Count John did not kill him- self, but he had been very weak and foolish to allow himself to be deceived by the aunt, for it was found out that the Countess Louisa had always been faithful, and that she had not written the letter at all, but that it had been forged by her aunt, who was really in love with Count John, and who was wicked enough to do all kinds of dishonorable things to separate him from the Countess Louisa. In a few weeks the Count John Tyscovicius and the Countess Louisa Karpinski were married ; but he, though a young man, always remained gray-haired and gray-bearded, and " A smothered groan and the sound of something falling heavily caused Lai to turn to where her aunt had stood, but where she stood no longer, for her senseless body lay a motionless mass upon the floor. CHAPTER X. A SOCIETY QUESTION. THE acceptance of the professorship of physiology in the " Martha Washington Medical College for Women," by Mrs. Geoffrey Moultrie, was an event which caused no small amount of commotion in the fashionable and unfashionable worlds of New York and the country at large. The secular press had noticed the fact in terms of high commendation ; the medical journals were di- vided. One portion that representing the progres sive section of the profession spoke of it approvingly, and predicted that the new professor would still further extend her reputation as a skilful and original investiga- tor, besides advancing the cause of science. The other portion speaking for the conservative and more numer- ous division predicted failure, and declared that physiol- ogy was one of those things that no woman could expect to study either with advantage to herself or to scientific medicine. It called attention to the alleged fact that woman was wanting in exactness in her mental proc- esses ; that she was prone to jump at conclusions ; that she was not capable of weighing evidence and of decid- ing irrespective of her likes and dislikes ; and while it was perhaps possible that certain chairs in a medical col- lege for women might be moderately well filled by her, physiology was the one of all others for which she was utterly unsuited. The Medical and Surgical Erebus A SOCIETY QUESTION. 187 was especially severe upon the appointment. This rep- resentative of conservatism in medicine was edited by Dr. McPheeters, whose views upon the subject of women- physicians are already known to the reader. This gentle- man denounced the appointment in unmeasured terms. He declared that Mrs. Moultrie's previous researches were of no consequence ; that her experiments in evolution were ridiculous ; that the result of her investigations rela- tive to the nerve-force had never been accepted by physi- ologists as at all worthy of being incorporated into the science of physiology, and that if there must be women- physicians a necessity that he did not believe existed the proper teachers were men, who had the ability and the nerve to conduct such experiments as were needed to demonstrate the facts of the science. As for him, he was already of the opinion that no woman could study physiology without experiencing a loss of the delicacy of sentiment which should characterize her. No useful purpose was subserved by teaching a school-girl where her liver was, or that she had such an organ as a spleen, or that there were two hemispheres of the brain, or other anatomical knowledge, the possession of which simply tended to destroy her proper feminine mental character- istics, without giving her any adequate return for the loss. Then he mailed a copy of the Medical and Surgical Erebus to Moultrie, and another to his wife, and walked up Fifth Avenue looking more colicky than ever. But in " social circles" the discussion was still more acrid, and was maintained for a much longer period. Without ever having been in an ultra-fashionable set, whose whole minds are devoted to a continual round of gayety and dissipation, the Moultries had always occu- pied a position in society among the very best people in 188 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. the city of New York. That they did not go to any of the semi-public balls or to many of the private ones was simply because they did not affect that kind of amuse- ment. They went to a few dinner-parties every winter, given by people whom they liked, and at which they were sure of meeting individuals noted for something else besides the possession of city lots and railroad stocks, and they gave half a dozen or so in return, at each of which men or women who had honorably distinguished themselves in science, literature, or art were certain to be found. Moultrie, although democratic in everything relating to the rights of the people, was very tenacious of his position as a member of the aristocracy of education. He would no more have thought of admitting to his house the Fifth Avenue millionaire who knew nothing but dollars, and who had done nothing but pile up wealth by sharp practices, than he would have held social fel- lowship with a coal-heaver. Indeed, if the latter could by any possibility have been a refined and educated per- son, he would not have hesitated a moment in meeting him on socially equal terms. But ignorance and vul- garity were repulsive to him, especially in those who, having acquired wealth, made pretensions to gentility which neither their origin nor their education warranted. Now, it was chiefly among this latter class that adverse criticisms on Theodora's course abounded. Miss Sorby, for instance, who had been so very hard on Hachel Meadows when she took to making her own living by her brain work, whose grandfather had, as we know, been a truck-driver, and whose grandmother had retailed apples from a stand in the Bowery, did not see how any lady could continue to notice Mrs. Moultrie or touch a A SOCIETY QUESTION. 189 hand that, " for all we know, my dear," as she talked the latter over in her opera-box with her friend Miss Boggs, whose father had been a deck-hand on a ferry- boat, " may not, five minutes before, have dabbled in human gore." " Yes, or who has just been talking about livers and lights and all them things to a lot of old maids." " There she is now in her box, with her husband and step-daughter. You'd think, to look at her, that butter wouldn't melt in her mouth ; but 1 guess she's thinking of all them horrid things she's going to talk about to- morrow. ' ' " Well, ma says she'll never ask her to our house again. We called soon after she came to the city, for pa owned some of the railroads that Mr. Moultrie worked on, and we thought we'd be civil to 'em ; but she only sent cards in return the next day ; and though we asked 'em to our receptions, she never had the decency to come or to invite us to her house." " How rude! For my part," said Miss Sorby, "1 hate vulgarians, and now I guess she'll go down out of notice. Of course she's rich, but mere riches, my dear," tossing her narrow head as she spoke, " don't go for much in our set. Pasdetout" " Well, I declare !" exclaimed Miss Boggs, whose opera-glass had been levelled at the Moultries' box, " if that isn't disgraceful ! There's the French Minister and Prince Bromkouski setting in their box. Pa and my brother, Maximilian von Wied, left cards on them yes- terday. I suppose they'll call to-morrow. The prince is awful rich. But I think after this I shall treat them both pretty coldly." " Oh, the prince is only there," assented Miss Sorby, 190 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. " because the step-daughter is half Polish ! Her mother, so they say," she added, with sharp emphasis, " was a Polish princess, and the girl was lost on the prairie, or something of that sort, when she was a baby, and was only found again about a year ago. For my part, I don't believe much in them long-lost daughters. Do you, Maria ? No impostures of that sort for me, I thank you ! I don't think they ought to be tolerated in good society. ' ' " Oh, as to that !" exclaimed her friend, laughing im- moderately, in which Miss Sorby joined, " I've known whole families of just such daughters ; but then, you see, they didn't set in opera-boxes with their so-called step-mothers. Oh, no, not at all !" " Neither of the gentlemen has spoken a word since they entered the box," said Miss Boggs, who had con- tinued her observations. " I guess they don't find their company very entertaining." " Oh, these stuck-up people think it isn't decent to talk at the opera while the singing's going on. What are a lot of opera-singers, I'd like to know, that we shouldn't talk before them ? I'll talk where I please, and laugh, too, if I want to." " Not in church you wouldn't, Selina," remarked Miss Boggs, in a serious tone of voice, befitting the solemnity of the speech. "Well, no, of course not in church ; but here I'll do it as much as I like. The last night I was just talking and laughing with Billy Barlow, not loud, neither, and a man setting in the next box, who came with them Abercrombies, who, I may say, are as much stuck-up as the Moultries, tried to stare me out of countenance ; but the more he stared the more I talked and laughed, A SOCIETY QUESTION. 191 and at last he gave it up as a bad job, and left the box." ""What impudence! I wonder you didn't tell your brother. ' ' " Oil, Maximilian von "Wied is so fiery that if I had told him there'd have been a row, sure, and some one would have got hurt. But what do you think the man did ? You couldn't guess if you were to try for a week. It was just the rudest thing I ever knew of in my life. He went out and complained to the manager, and he sent an usher to tell us that we must make no noise. And when I said, t Suppose we talk just as much as we please^ what then ? ' ( Well, miss,' said the fellow, ' if you keep on making a noise I'll have to complain to the policeman in attendance, and I suppose he'll take you out.' " " How scandalous ! I never heard anything quite so bad as that." " No, my dear, nor I, either. Pa says he's going to give up his box, and that he'll never take it again as long as Stapleton is the manager." "To go back to the Moultries," said Miss Boggs, dropping her glass arid turning away from the stage on which Patti, as Annetta, was singing in the duet in the second act of Crispino e la Commare. " They say that Mr. Moultrie is very much opposed to his wife taking a professorship in a medical college. Tommy Pincham told me last night, at the Philanthropists' ball, that Jimmy Sandwich told him that he had it from good authority that Mr. Moultrie became perfectly infuriated when he heard of his wife's intention, and said that he would just as soon have her go on the stage as an actress as to have her teaching and becoming a public character.' ' 192 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. " Yes, I heard something like that, only he said he would as soon have his wife ride in a circus as show off in a medical lecture-room. I had it from Johnny Mar- lin, and you know he lives next door to the Moultries." " Well, whatever it was, it was bad enough, and it seems to be the general impression that it will end in a divorce. I heard he was divorced from his first wife. I wonder how they ever got into society here !" " They'll be out now, pretty soon," said Miss Sorby, after a careful study of the Moultrie party through her lorgnette. " By the by, did you ever meet with a rather original character, very intelligent, too Miss Billy Bremen ? She's tolerably wealthy, seventy or eighty thousand a year or thereabouts, daughter of a prominent butcher, who died several years ago, leaving her all his money. She isn't in society at all, but I suppose she will be some of these days, or if she isn't, her children will be." " What, that little, fat, Dutch thing who keeps the butchers' -shop on Sixth Avenue ?" " She has a large abattoir at Locust Point, and a receiving depot in Sixth Avenue, if that's what you call keeping a butcher-shop," answered Miss Sorby, with a little irritation in her voice. " I admit that she's little and fat, but I deny that she's Dutch. She's of German descent. Well, she told me that she went to see Mrs. Moultrie on a matter of business, and that she was ordered out of the house and threatened with a policeman by her ladyship before she had uttered a dozen words." " She must be a perfect termagant." " Yes ; she is even worse than that other woman's- rights woman, Miss Eachel Meadows, whom 1 had the satisfaction of cutting dead some time ago." A SOCIETY QUESTION. 193 " So had I, and I enjoyed it mightily, I tell you. The idea of her daring to attempt to keep my acquaint- ance after going about the country lecturing." Just then the curtain fell, and the two young ladies, relapsing into silence, occupied themselves in scanning with their opera- glasses the parties in the various boxes and the gentlemen who stood in the aisles. But in a higher class, though by no means a more fashionable one, Theodora's step was considered from a different standpoint from that in which it was regarded by the Misses Sorby and Boggs and their set. Here she had many warm friends, who took an interest in what concerned her, and who liked her for her good sense and for the pleasure they derived from her society. By most of them her new departure was regarded with regret, for they had notions in relation to woman's sphere which were altogether incompatible with such an act as hers appeared to them to be. They thought it was a lower- ing of the high standard of femininity that they had erected, and that they conceived a woman of her excel- lence and prominence should endeavor to maintain, for her to assume a position that required her to act a part that, so far as their knowledge extended, had heretofore been assigned exclusively to men. They believed that no woman, especially a married woman, and, above all, one who had everything about her to make her life hon- orable and happy, should seek outside of her own home for a field upon which to display her knowledge or to make herself useful, unless it were one of charity or be- nevolence. They did not question her ability, or the honesty of purpose by which she was actuated, but they did doubt her possession of that equable temperament which, up to this time, they had given her credit for 9 194 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. Laving. There was no intention among these people of dropping her acquaintance ; they did not look upon her proposed act as one that was incompatible with her posi- tion as a lady, but they were sincerely grieved that she should have felt called upon to make such a tremendous innovation in the manners and customs of women of gentle breeding. It might all be very well for women- graduates in medicine, who had sat on the benches with men-students in the University of Zurich or of that of Paris, to give lectures in a medical college. Delicacy and refinement were not to be expected in them. Like the grapes that are handled, the bloom had been rubbed off, and it would not be any greater desecration of their womanly natures for them to recapitulate as professors what they had learned as pupils. These people, sensible as they in general were, seemed to be incapable of grasp- ing the idea by which, Theodora was animated. They had travelled so long in one rut that it had become im- possible for them to extricate themselves and to move once more over unworn ground. And they were disposed to hold Moultrie responsible for the departure from the system of social observances that Theodora contemplated. They held to the old- fashioned idea that the wife should be completely under her husband's influence, at least so far as concerned her relations with the world outside of her own domicile. St. Paul had declared that the husband was the head of the wife, even as Christ was the head of the Church. Nothing, they thought, could be stronger than this asser- tion of Scripture ; and when Mrs. Castor, whose cousin was a bishop, quoted and applied it with great unction one day, in conversation with that irreverent old lady, Mrs. Pollux, whose father had been a blockade-runner, A SOCIETY QUESTION. 195 or a slave-trader, or a pirate, or something else of the kind, and was told in reply, " Very true, my dear ; but if Christ is to be held responsible for everything the Church has done, I am afraid he will require the grace of God as much as we poor sinners, " she was shocked at the quasi blasphemy, but her opinion was not in the least shaken. Both ladies were at the opera that evening, in their respective boxes, and Moultrie, who knew them very in- timately, visited them in turn during the next entr'act. First he entered Mrs. Castor's box. The lady did not care for music ; it was a bore to her ; but she went to the opera because it was the proper thing to do, and because Mr. Castor was infatuated with it ; but whether with the music, or the lady singers, or the coryphees, she could never exactly determine. She knew, how- ever, that he did not, when his daughter was performing on the piano, know one tune from another, and yet at the opera he clapped his hands and cried " Irava!" and whispered " beautiful !" as some intricate piece of musical pyrotechnics was let off, or some complicated Terpsiuhorean performance evolved out of the nether limbs of the members of the corps de ballet. It was a little suspicious, especially the latter circumstance, but he had always declared that it was not the dancing that enraptured him, but the admirable work of the orchestra. Nevertheless Mrs. Castor thought that it was just possi- ble he needed watching ; so she had an additional in- ducement for attending the opera. She greeted Moultrie very warmly, and made room for him by relegating young Castor from the chair he was occupying next to her to one at the back of the box, where he was out of the way. " Sit here," she 196 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. said; U I am so glad to see you. "We that is, Mr. Castor and I, were just saying how well Mrs. Moultrie is looking to-night, and how lovely your daughter is. Is she to be brought out this season ?" " No ; Mrs. Moultrie and I both think that she had better not have her mind diverted yet awhile from more serious subjects, and she is of our opinion. Next year will be time enough.' ' " Well, don't delay it too long. Girls, as Mr. Castor says, are like city lots. You keep them, expecting that business will reach them soon, and that then you will sell, when suddenly you discover that trade has taken all at once a tremendous jump, and has skipped them." Moultrie smiled at this characteristic illustration, for the Castors owed much of their prominence, socially and financially, to the large number of " lots" owned by the head of the house. " I am not afraid of that for Lalage," he said. " As you are an old friend, I may be excused for telling you that her fate is sealed." " What, engaged to be married, and not yet out in society !" " Yes ; she was engaged before she left Colorado." " Will it be considered impertinent if I inquire who is the happy man ?" " Not at all. She will in a few months marry the Count John Tyscovus of Poland, or, as he is now, the Hon. John Tyscovus, Delegate to Congress from the Territory of Colorado." " Tyscovus ! Oh, yes, 1 know him ! He has been, off and on, a good deal in New York society. His father married an American woman, one of the Pinkneys, and he has a large fortune, made up from both sides. To A SOCIETY QUESTION. 197 think of his turning up in Colorado as a Member of Congress, and about to marry your daughter !" " Yes, it is all very remarkable. But how do you like the opera this evening ?" " You know I don't care much for music, but I sup- pose it is all very fine, if one may judge by the applause. Besides, my whole mind is full of another matter. Will you allow me, as an old friend," she continued, laying her hand on his arm, " to talk with you a little about it ?' ' " My dear Mrs. Castor, you may talk to me about any subject you please. Your right as a friend is indisput- able." He knew very well what was coming, and was rather glad than otherwise of the opportunity to set his friends right in regard to several points in which they were clearly wrong. " Thanks. You will not misunderstand my motives, I am sure." She stopped for a moment, as though thinking as she probably was how to begin. Then she said : " You are blessed with a lovely woman for a wife one who wins the hearts of all who know her. You have given her all that is calculated to make her life happy good position, wealth, a refined home, and everything that riches and taste and love can afford. Besides, and above all else, you are a home-man, with home-interests apparently above all other interests that is, you do not spend your days and nights at your club, and your amuse- ments are found with your family. Well, now I hear that your wife is going into public life as a lecturer in a medical college for women. My dear friend, you will not be surprised if I ask why is this, for it is a question that is on the lips of everybody who knows you or her." " It is not likely, my dear Mrs. Castor, that you could 198 A 'STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. offend me by showing that you take an interest in me and mine, especially when you accompany your question with so many kind expressions. And I should ill repay your goodness were I to refuse to answer. You did not know my wife before her marriage, and hence much of what I am about to say may perhaps be a surprise to you. My wife," he continued, after receiving an encouraging glance from Mrs. Castor and they were now alone in the box " was educated in a peculiar way entirely, in fact, by her father and a Swiss governess, who was a graduate in medicine of the University of Zurich. While Theodora was yet a child her mother died, and her father became imbued with certain notions relative to women and their proper position in the social and the political worlds, that exercised a preponderating influ- ence over him in the matter of the education of his daughter. He had her taught medicine and natural science, especially anatomy and physiology, and tried to instil in her a desire to enter politics. Here, however, law was against him ; but she frequently gave lectures to the people of the town in which they lived, in a lyceum which he had instituted and liberally endowed. "It was not, therefore, surprising that under such influences her mind should have been developed in a particular direction, and that she should have acquired a great fondness for the sciences she studied. Her intel- lect was good ; few men have more equally-balanced minds than has she, and she possesses also that greatest of all the mental faculties, the power of concentrating her attention upon a subject and of keeping it there till she has understood it thoroughly. She had ample opportu- nity for several years, under the encouragement of her father and teacher, to study and investigate to her heart's A SOCIETY QUESTION. 199 content. A laboratory admirably fitted up was built, and here she not only devoted herself to the acquirement of existing knowledge, but she made original experi- ments that have materially added, as all physiologists admit, to . the sum total of established facts in that science. "During five or six years this course of instruction and study were kept up. She became more than ordi- narily proficient in medicine ; and though she never attended lectures at a medical college, and hence never took the degree of Doctor of Medicine, she practised quite extensively among the women and children of the part of the country where she lived. Physicians have told me that her knowledge was far above that of the average doctor, and that, moreover, she possessed a de- gree of tact and of judgment that would have done credit to men in the profession of twice her age and experience. " 1 suppose it is hardly possible for you, my dear Mrs. Castor, to imagine that a young girl of good family, and reared amid all the luxuries and refinements that large wealth can give, could take an interest in such subjects, or that, taking it, could preserve her natural sweetness of character, and, above all, that she should develop into a pure-minded, gentle woman, whose tastes for the beautiful in nature and art should be as well marked as though she had been brought up, for instance, under your care. It would be difficult, I say, for you to con- sider the possibility of such a thing, for to do so requires a kind of experience that you have never had. You might as well be called upon to give your views of the characteristics of the inhabitants of the moon, if there are any. " And I am free to confess that when I first met 200 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. Theodora Willis my prejudices were not essentially different from those that now actuate you. I saw that she was beautiful ; I felt instinctively, as I watched her movements and heard her speak, that she was refined, modest, and free from those disagreeable peculiarities of temper or disposition that so many young women of the present day exhibit. And yet when I learned, as I did the next day, in casual conversation with her father, that she had studied medicine and had dissected ' all kinds of animals, from man to insects,' I was shocked beyond measure, and 1 determined that I would never meet her again. But already her spell was around me. I did meet her again, and many times ; and, little by little, my prejudices faded away before the light of in- dubitable facts, and then I knew that there was nothing good or pure or noble in womanhood that was not in Theodora Willis. I recognized then the grand truth that there is nothing in the study of the works of God, when undertaken with pure motives, that can tend to debase the mind, either of man or of woman ; but that, on the contrary, it is lifted above the meannesses and trivialities of life to a plane of which those who grovel in ignorance have no conception." " Verily," exclaimed Mrs. Castor, " ' thou almost per- suadest me. ' Your reasoning is good, and the truth of all that you say of your wife is unquestionable. Doubtless Mr. Castor would say as much for me if it should ever become necessary, but up to this time I have never dis- tinguished myself, except, perhaps, for my dinner-parties. An eminence in that direction requires no defence. Now, my friend, go on." " After our marriage," continued Moultrie, " my wife gave up her special studies, or at least the practical part A SOCIETY QUESTION. 201 of them, though she has always continued to take an in- terest in all departments of natural science. I have done nothing to discourage her, for I knew very well that a mind as active and as intelligent as hers could not remain content with the mere satisfaction of its emotional part. I felt afraid, too, that the love for original investigations and for a more thorough identification with scientific pursuits was only dormant, and I have been expecting, ever since I made her my wife, that the time would come when the longing would rise to the surface. "Well, it came when she was offered the professorship of phys- iology in the ' Martha Washington Medical College for Women. ' I saw that she was pleased, but I also saw that she was resolved to allow me to decide for her. One word from me would have stopped the whole thing. Can you blame me, when the chief object of my life is to secure her happiness, that I refused to interfere, but that, on the contrary, I gave my full and unreserved ap- proval of the acceptance ?" " No, my friend, so far as your relations with your wife are concerned I do not blame you ; but people who live in the world are obliged to sacrifice something to expediency. They cannot, in fact, afford to disregard the prejudices of those among whom they live. For instance, there would be nothing intrinsically wrong in my walking down Fifth Avenue every morning at ten o'clock in a bathing-dress; but don't you suppose that if I were to do so I would become the subject of censure or ridicule ; that I would attract a crowd of hoot- ing men and boys, and that, probably, although I had violated none of the canons of decency, I should be ar- rested by the police ?" " And I think," said Moultrie, laughing, " that if you 202 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. did such a tiling from pure wantonness, or simply for your amusement, or for the sake of making yourself no- torious, that you ought to be arrested. You have chosen an extreme case, but I will accept it. Now, suppose that by walking down Fifth Avenue every day at ten o'clock, clothed in a bathing-dress, you improved your mind and showed other women how they could improve theirs ; and suppose, further, that instead of being a ridiculous and irrational performance, the act were one necessary to the understanding of the noblest works of God those comprised within the domain of organic nature, from man down to the lowest vegetable forms would it not be your duty to incur the derision of the ignorant or the odium and contempt of the malicious for the sake of the objects you had in view ? Remember the fate of all reformers. They are in advance of their time. In the Middle Ages we burnt them at a stake ; now we visit them with social ostracism. My wife can endure it, and with God's help I intend that she shall not falter for want of a supporting hand from me. And as to society, composed as it is in New York of elements two thirds of which are beneath the contempt of edu- cated and intelligent people, neither I nor my wife will allow its action one way or the other to disturb our equanimity." Mrs. Castor was silent for a few moments. She was evidently much moved by what Moultrie had said and by his manner of saying it. Had he observed her closely, he would have seen a tear in each eye and a little nervou^ twitching about the corners of the mouth, which, try as she would, she could not prevent. His hand, the one nearer Mrs. Castor, rested on his knee, and presently he felt her touch it. A SOCIETY QUESTION. 203 " When does your wife begin lier lectures ? " she said, with a little tremor of her voice. " To-morrow at three o'clock. I shall go with her to the college and stay with her while she is delivering it. Being her introductory, it will not be strictly of a scien- tific character. At least, not deeply so." " May I go with you?" As she said these words Moultrie felt her hand press his with a little more force. He did not speak, but his hand turned and grasped hers, and he gave her a look, which was all the answer she needed. " Then if you will allow me," she continued, with- drawing her hand and recovering her composure, " I will take lunch with you at two o'clock, and you shall drive me over with you to the college. My friend," she con- tinued, " you are right. Your wife is a heroine, you are a hero, and, please God, we will fight this matter through. Now go ; there's old Mrs. Pollux looking at us through her glass and grinning, and if you stay here much longer she will circulate a story that you have been making love to me, whereas it is I who have been making love to you." There was nothing patronizing in Mrs. Castor's words or manner. She was not the woman to attempt that line with a man like Moultrie ; neither was he a person to submit to it from anybody. He felt that she had been honestly converted from her way of thinking, and that she intended to " assist" at Theodora's introductory, not so much for the purpose of giving countenance to her as to show the world that she had undergone a change of views. She was a very independent woman. She could do pretty much as she pleased in New York, and be certain of having any number of servile imitators. Once lot it be known that Mrs. Castor had attended Mrs. 204 A STEONG-MINDED WOMAN. Moultrie's introductory lecture on physiology, and the opinions of a hundred women which now hung in the balance or were dead against women-lecturers would be firmly settled in their favor. Mrs. Pollux smiled graciously as Moultrie entered her box, and holding out her hand, gave him a vacant seat on one side of her. The chair on the other side was occuplied by General Bluifum, on the retired list of the army, who had attained high military rank by pursuing the discreet policy of never differing with his superiors, and by staying around "Washington, on bureau or staff duty, thus keeping the u powers that were" constantly aware of his existence a fact which, as he had never been under fire, and probably never in front of an enemy in the field, might otherwise have passed out of their memory. The two gentlemen bowed to each other, and Moultrie having taken the seat indicated to him, Mrs. Pollux opened her batteries. She was Mrs. Castor's best and most intimate friend, though tile two ladies never met without having a dis- pute, in wliich, owing to her utter indifference and reck- lessness as to what she said, Mrs. Pollux, so far as words went, generally had the better of it. She was older than Mrs. Castor by at least ten years, having been fifty- one at her last birthday ; but though she never denied her own age, she insisted with the utmost vehemence that " Tilly Castor might say what she pleased, but if she ever saw fifty- two again it would have to be when her soul was transmigrated into another animal younger than the one that now held it." " I'm coming to your wife's lecture to-morrow !" she exclaimed, almost before Moultrie had fairly got settled into his chair. " Indeed, I think 1 shall attend the A SOCIETY QUESTION. 205 whole course ; I've always had a curiosity to know why people who never think should have brains. It seems to me such a waste. I've been asking General Bluffum, but he couldn't tell me. By the by, that reminds me that as often as I've asked General Bluffum for infor- mation I've never succeeded in getting any." u If you would ask me about Egypt now," said the General, u I could tell you a good deal about it. Spent last winter there," he continued, addressing Moultrie. " Brought home lots of embroideries, brass-ware, mum- mies, and other antiquities. In fact, I quite spoiled the Egyptians. Ha ! ha !" " Spoiled the Egyptians, did you ?" said Mrs. Pollux, a little sharply, for she had no idea of allowing the Gen- eral to join in the conversation she wanted to have with Moultrie. " Well, they're not the only things you've spoiled in your time. You're fit for treasons, strata- gems, and spoils. Had him that time," she continued, in a whisper to Moultrie. ~^~^\ u That's because I have no music in mr soul,'; replied the Genera], good-naturedly. " Now, whenever I hear General Bluffum talking about his soul," growled Mrs. Pollux to Moultrie, " I wish I had your wife's microscope handy, so that 1 could take a peep at it. Now, tell me all about this new move of your wife's. You needn't mind Bluffum. He knows that it would be as much as his life's worth for him to repeat anything he hears in this box." u There is nothing to tell," said Moultrie, smiling, " ex- cept that to-morrow afternoon at three o'clock Mrs. Geof- frey Moultrie will give her first lecture on physiology." "And do you approve of her doing so?" said Mrs. Pollux, looking him straight in the face. 206 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. " Of course I do. In the first place, I approve of everything she does ; and in the second place, she does nothing that I do not approve of." " Spoken like a man and a brother !" exclaimed Mrs. Pollux. " Give us your hand ! I must shake it after that. You'll hold your own in spite of 'em. They're a bad lot, these New York ' society women/ as they call themselves most of 'em are, I mean ; up to-day and down to-morrow. Giving a ball at Delmonico's this week, and living on a flat in Long Island City the next. And for the ' loiks o' thim,' as my coachman says, to be conspiring against you and me is a little too much you whose grandfather was a general in the Revolution, and me whose father commanded the Bolivian navy ! What time do you go ? Why can't you both come over and lunch with me, and then we'll go together." " Mainly, I suppose, because Mrs. Castor is coming to lunch with us." " Then ask your wife to send me an invitation to join you, and I'll come too, and we'll all go together. But you don't mean to tell me that Tilly Castor is going to give you the light of Tier countenance !' ' " Mrs. Castor certainly expects to be present." " The inconsistent old thing ! But there goes the curtain, and we mustn't talk any more. There are a couple of young blackguards that Sorby girl and that Boggs ditto in the next box, and they've done nothing but talk about you all the evening. They kept it up all the time the singing was going on, and I heard them bragging how they had stared a gentleman out of coun- tenance who tried to make them stop by looking at them. 1 stopped them, but not by looking at them. I took this,' ' showing a sharp gold pin, some four inches A SOCIETY QUESTION. 207 long, and with a head made of a single large diamond, 61 out of rny lace, and when the Sorby girl was talking her loudest I very stealthily stuck it about an inch into the small of her back. Lord ! 1 wish you could have seen her jump. She knows I did it, but she can't prove it, and she knows what I did it for. She hasn't opened her mouth since. Good-night. Don't forget to ask your wife to invite me to lunch, and we'll show 'em who's who in New York." CHAPTER XI. A BEGINNING AND AN END. THEODORA had made several visits to the u Martha Washington Medical College for Women," and had be- come familiar with the arrangements which the founders of that institution had established for the furtherance of the objects they had in view. The building had been erected, at considerable cost, for the special purpose of a medical college, and was far better supplied with the re- quirements of such a structure than are most of those used for the like object by the opposite sex. She had thus often been brought into intimate association with Rachel Meadows, and had also made the acquaintance of Miss Richardson, who, though not a graduate in medi- cine, or even a systematic student of the science, had attended several of the courses of lectures, in order, as she said, to make herself acquainted with those branches of knowledge which, as she declared, every educated person, man or woman, ought to know something about. She had announced her intention of attending all the lectures to be delivered by Mrs. Moultrie. In order to show their appreciation of Theodora's acquirements, and probably also for the purpose of pro- viding for uniformity in the titles held by the several members of the Faculty, the trustees had conferred upon her the honorary degree of " Doctor of Medicine." She smiled when she was called " Doctor" for the first A 1 BEGINNING AND AN END. 209 time, and she soon discovered that she was to receive that handle to her name whenever she was addressed by any one, officer pr student, connected with the college. The class in attendance was a large one/and was made up not only from all parts of the United States, but from other countries of America, North and South, as well as of a sprinkling from Europe. Most of them were women who had passed the heyday of their youth, but there were several who were not yet out of their teens, and a few though not many, it must be confessed who were possessed of great personal beauty. The morning of the 20th of November, 1874, opened auspiciously. The day was clear, cool, and crisp, and Theodora was in such a condition of Men aise as to admit of the same adjectives being applied to her. She had worked hard at the preparation of her lecture, but at the same time so systematically that she felt no fatigue. She had one of those minds in which subjects are, as it were to use the simile of an eminent scholar laid away on shelves or hung up on pegs, ready for service when needed. It was not much trouble for her to get them down and to bring them into use when required. Then when she had gotten them all arranged in the order she intended she went to the opera, as we have seen, and for the first time in her life Lai went with her. But although she was ready, and felt that confidence in herself which the person who has mastered what he or she is about to discuss always feels, and although she had no doubt in regard to her ability to communicate her knowledge to others, she did not underrate the impor- tance of the step she was about to take. She felt, indeed, as though upon her had fallen the task of showing to the world that it was not requisite that a woman who de- 210 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. sired to live an active scientific life should cut herself off from those associations which, in all ages of the world, had been regarded as hers by right of custom and nature. So far as she knew, no woman situated as she was had ever occupied a chair in a medical college. There had been women-professors in fact, there were three in the college with which she was connected, the others being men but they were all either single women well advanced in years, who had given up all ideas of marriage, or widows without any immediate family ties. However, there was no denying the fact that none of them was, either by manners or education, such a person as she would have chosen as her social companion or acquaintance. All of them were disorderly in their dress and had certain offensive habits that would have ruled them out of good society. Thus, Dr. Susan Pike, who held a prominent chair in the school, and who, so far as her medical knowledge went, was probably competent to teach the branch assigned to her, indulged in the use of " chewing gum" to such an extent that not only were her jaws kept in perpetual motion, even when she was not talking, but the secretions of the salivary glands were so materially augmented above all normal standards, that she was obliged to spit every two or three minutes. On account of this habit she was known among the lady-students as the " Llama," and a bright girl in the class had drawn a caricature of her as one of these useful, though disagreeable, animals, stand- ing in the amphitheatre and giving a lecture, with a big spittoon hung around her neck. Another, Dr. Marie Antoinette Billings, an elderly lady, who had buried two husbands, and had then taken up the study of medicine, had had several severe contests A BEGINNING AND AN END. 211 with medical societies in the effort to obtain recognition from the male members of the profession. There was nothing at all singular in Dr. Billings's assumption of the doctorate beyond the fact that she was a woman. Nevertheless, in her own city, Philadelphia, she had been refused admission into the county medical society on no other ground than that of her sex. Whereupon she had shaken the dust of the Quaker City from her feet and had removed to New York, where, notwithstanding the factious opposition of Dr. McPheeters and his " gang," as she called them, she had been admitted to full fellow- ship. Although nearly fifty years of age when she began the study of medicine, she had acquired a sound knowledge of its principles, and her experience, espe- cially in the department of children's diseases, was very considerable. Her success had been somewhat remark- able, for her personal characteristics, to those of delicate sensibilities, were not pleasant. She was nicknamed " Saint Eufraxia," who, as the legend states, was a holy woman belonging to a convent of one hundred and thirty nuns, not one of whom ever washed her feet. The very mention of a bath was an abomination to these good ladies. Whether or not Dr. Marie Antoinette Billings carried matters as far as did Saint Eufraxia and her com- panions, it was very evident that she possessed the " odor of sanctity" to such a degree as to make her room better than her company. Then there was Dr. Libby Johnson, a lady who had passed the meridian of her life in single blessedness, wno was very angular in her movements and postures, very untidy in her person, very precise in her speech, and very ignorant of the first glimmering of the idea of the subject Materia Medica and Therapeutics which 212 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. she had undertaken to teach to the suckling feminine Galens at the u Martha Washington Medical College for Women." How Dr. Libby Johnson had succeeded in getting a diploma was never known. That she had one, and from a respectable college, was undoubted, for the governing powers of the school were exceedingly strict in their ideas of regularity, and " out-Heroded Herod" in their adhesion to the code of ethics of the American Medical Association, just as the Canadians, who are left out in the cold, are more loyal to the throne than the English themselves. But it was very certain that she was not qualified to fill the chair that she held. She managed, however, to recapitulate verbatim the views of writers who knew what they were writing about. All her lectures were written out in full, and had been copied from authorities whose teachings might safely be followed. She had obtained her appointment through the per- sonal influence of a wealthy lady, who had given ten thousand dollars for the endowment of the chair, on con- dition that Dr. Libby Johnson should be the first occu- pant. Now the trustees were beginning to take legal advice as to their power to remove Dr. Libby without forfeiting their endowment, with a strong prospect of a favorable opinion on the point. Her peculiarity was an infirmity rather than a fault, but it was one, nevertheless, that caused her to live a life of comparative isolation, both on her own account and that of others. She was afflicted with a species of St. Yitus's dance of the muscles of the face, so that she was either winking or grinning or exhibiting some other expressional manifestation all the time that she was in A BEGINNING AND AN END. 213 company, unless she preserved a state of silence and of indifference in regard to what was being said or done in her presence. The very moment that she opened her mouth to speak, that instant her eyelids, the corners of her mouth, and her nose began to work. She had even been known, when under more than usual excitement, to " wag her left ear;" but ordinarily the twitchings did not extend so far as that organ. It was very provoking, however, to her and others, that when some particularly serious remark had been addressed to her she should, be- fore answering, elevate her brows and wink her eyes, as though expressing surprise and doubt. Indeed, the affliction would, but for her years, have excited the censorious remarks of the ignorant and the malicious. As it was, when a young gentleman had picked up her fan which she had dropped, and was repaid by a kind glance and a wink of her right eye, old Miss Scribner, who saw the whole thing, was loud in her denunciation of a woman " old enough to be his grandmother." Such were the women members of the Faculty. As to the men, the less said of them the better. They were commonplace in every way. But then, so little ability and knowledge are absolutely requisite in a professor in a medical college, that they got along quite as well as many of their brethren in more pretentious institutions. It was one o'clock ; Mrs. Castor and Mrs. Pollux had arrived in time for lunch, and Moultrie had come up from his office to join them. Both ladies were profuse in their compliments on Theodora's good looks and the courage she was showing. She had spent the morning in thinking over her subject and in familiarizing herself with her thoughts, so as to get them into good working order, to have them, as it were, at her tongue's end, ready 214 A STRONG MINDED WOMAN. for use the instant she wished to enunciate them. She had not written a word of her lecture, nor did she even intend to use notes in its delivery. She had studied it thoroughly ; she was satisfied that she had done her best, and whether it fell dead or took the public by storm were alternatives that were now beyond her control. " Are we not to have your lovely daughter with us, Mr. Moultrie ?' ' said Mrs. Castor, as she took his arm and went in with him to lunch. " No ; I was just asking Mrs. Moultrie about her. She is very busy, and begs to be excused." " What a model scholar ! Does she allow herself no relaxation from her labors ?" u Yes; but it would be no relaxation for her to be here, and especially for her to listen to her mother's lect- ure. This evening we shall all talk it over." " Do you know that there will be an immense audi- ence ? All the most prominent scientific and literary people in the city will be there, and any number of per- sons who, like Mrs. Pollux and myself, know nothing, but who go because we are anxious to see how a woman conducts herself when she comes to deal with a serious subject like physiology, and one, too, that requires such intense application." " I have no fear for her," said Moultrie, glancing toward his wife, his face expressing the pride he took in her. "A woman with her knowledge need never be afraid to stand up before the most learned assembly in the land and tell what she knows. She has had a train- ing which, if I had had one half so good, would have been greatly to my advantage." " Oh, how I admire your confidence in her ! If men were all as generous and as true as you are, how differ- A BEGINNING AND AN END. 215 ent we women would be ! 1 have seen many women singers, actresses, ballet-dancers make their debuts be- fore crowded assemblies, and face the ordeal with cour- age and success, and I have witnessed some break down and retire in confusion and tears ; but the strain in such cases was not so severe as that that your wife will experi- ence to-day." " She will endure it, for she has the blood and the breeding and the esprit of a family the members of which, men or women, have never quailed in the face of dangers or failed in the face of difficulties." " What are you two talking about so mysteriously ?" said Mrs. Pollux, who sat on the other side of Moultrie. " Where there are only four together at table conversa- tion should be general. Now, let me tell you what I've done. I went out this morning and got all aU, I say the works of Herbert Huxley and Tyndall Spencer, and I've been through them. The consequence is, that I wish I was dead. If I had known that an intelligent person, such as I think I may, without undue vanity, say 1 am, would have been expected to read those books, I would never have been willing to be born. Is your lecture to be about such things as cataplasm, or whatever you call it, and the Lord knows what else besides ?" " Darwin, and Huxley, and Tyndall, and Spencer are our masters," answered Theodora, smiling. " Take some of that pat/. I know you like English pheasants, and when 1 heard you were going to be kind enough to lunch with us I ordered the dish for your special benefit." " Yes, and 1 find I am being plied with wine, too, doubtless for the purpose of putting me into such a con- dition as will prevent me understanding your lecture. 216 A STRONG-MINDED WOMAN. But you may spare your Chablis and your Lafitte and your Pommery sec, so far as Mrs. Castor and I are con- cerned. My mind and hers, too, although she will swear she knows all you are going to speak about is as blank as a sheet of paper, and all the wine in France couldn't make it blanker." " Speak for yourself, Carry, please," said Mrs. Castor. " It would, we know, be almost impious for any one to attempt to make an impression on your mind. It would look like endeavoring to contravene the eternal decrees of the Almighty. As for me, I happen to be familiar with the teachings of the great men whose very names you have confused, and I feel myself capable of under- standing Mrs. Moultrie's lecture." Never had Mrs. Pollux been answered by her friend with so much spirit as now. For a moment she regarded her with an expression of utter astonishment on her face. Then she burst out : " Hoighty-toighty !" she exclaimed. " The worm has actually turned ! But no, no," with a melancholy shake of her head and a ludicrous dropping of the cor- ners of her mouth, as though she were about to burst into tears ; " I see how it is : ' Much learning has made thee mad.' Well, well, as the Member of Congress from the Puddlefield district remarked the other day in de- bate,