the same old irrepressible!"

"Blushing already, you _dear_! I tell you he's splendid. I wish he'd
take to you," and she gave Miss Powell another squeeze. "It would be
_such_ a match! Brains and beauty, too."

"Oh, hush!"

They entered the cool, wide hall of the gymnasium, with its red brick
walls, its polished floor, and the yellow-red wooden beams lining the
ceiling.

There were only a few people remaining in the hall, most of them having
passed on into the museum. As they came to the various appliances, Miss
Powell explained them.

"What are these things for?" inquired Mrs. Blakesly, pointing at the row
of iron rings depending from long ropes.

"They are for swinging on," and she leaped lightly upward and caught and
swung by one hand.

"Mercy! Do you do that?"

"She seems to be doing it now," Blakesly said.

"I am one of the teachers," Miss Powell replied, dropping to the floor.

It was glorious to see how easily she seized a heavy dumb-bell and swung
it above her head. The front line of her body was majestic as she stood
thus.

"Gracious! I couldn't do that," exclaimed Mrs. Blakesly.

"No, not with your style of dress," replied her husband.--"I have to pin
her hat on this year," he said to Ware.

"I love it," said Miss Powell, as she drew a heavy weight from the floor
and stood with the cord across her shoulder. "It adds so much to life!
It gives what Browning calls the wild joy of living. Do you know, few
women know what that means? It's been denied us. Only the men have
known

"'The wild joys of living! the leaping from rock
up to rock,
The strong rending of boughs from the fir tree,
the cool silver shock
Of a plunge in the pool's living water.'

I try to teach my girls 'How good is man's life, the mere living!'"

The men cheered as she paused for a moment flushed and breathless.

She went on: "We women have been shut out from the sports too long--I
mean sports in the sun. The men have had the best of it. All the
swimming, all the boating, wheeling, all the grand, wild life; now we're
going to have a part."

The young ladies clustered about with flushed, excited faces while their
teacher planted her flag and claimed new territory for women.

Miss Powell herself grew conscious, and flushed and paused abruptly.

Mrs. Blakesly effervesced in admiring astonishment. "Well, well! I
didn't know you could make a speech."

"I didn't mean to do so," she replied.

"Go on