The old cronies leered at her as
she came in to light the candles--they leered at her; and the one seated
next to her husband poked that fortunate gentleman in the ribs and
congratulated him on his matrimonial estate.

Yet Mr. and Mrs. Taylor were happy, or reasonably so. He took much pride
in her intellect, indulged her in all material things she wanted, and
never thwarted her little ambitions to give functions to great men who
came up from the provinces.

She organized a Literary Coterie, to meet every Saturday and study Mary
Wollstonecraft's book on the "Rights of Woman."

Occasionally, she sat in the visitors' gallery at Parliament, but always
behind the screen. And constantly she wrote out her thoughts on the
themes of the time. Her husband never regarded these things as proof
that she was inwardly miserable, unsatisfied, and in spirit was roaming
the universe seeking a panacea for soul-nostalgia; not he! Nor she.

And so she gave the function to the Right Honorable Nobody from Essex.
And among thirty or forty other people was one John Stuart Mill, son of
the eminent James Mill, historian and philosopher, also Head Examiner of
the East India House. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor had made out the list of
people between them, choosing those whom they thought had sufficient
phosphorus so they would enjoy meeting a great theological meteoric
personality from Essex.

Mr. Taylor had seen young Mr. Mill in the East India House, where young
Mr. Mill made out invoices with big seals on them. Mr. Taylor had said
to Mr. Mill that it was a fine day, to which proposition Mr. Mill
agreed.

The Honorable James Mill was invited, too, but could not come, as he was
President of the Land Tenure League, and a meeting was on for the same
night.

Mr. Taylor introduced to the company the eminent visitor from
Essex--they had been chums together at Oxford--and then Mr. Taylor
withdrew into a quiet corner and enjoyed a nap as the manuscript was
being read in sonorous orotund.

The subject was, "The Proper Sphere of Woman in the Social Cosmogony."
By chance Mrs. Taylor and John Stuart Mill sat next to each other.

The speaker moved with stately tread through his firstly to his
seventhly, and then proceeded to sum up. The argument was that of Saint
Paul amplified, "Let woman learn in subjection"--"For the husband is the
head of the wife, as Christ is also the head of the Church"--"God made
woman for a helpmeet to man," etc.

Mrs. Taylor lo