n the
lounge. At times she was in great pain. I was telling her about the
interest which had just begun to be aroused in the sex reform movement.
She said: 'Oh, if I could only be put back ten years with the knowledge
I have, what an active part I would take in the movement, for I don't
want other girls and women to suffer what I have, through ignorance and
fear.'"

Penloe said: "Stella, we had better call on Phebe this afternoon, for
neither of us have seen her since we lived our mountain life, and we
will have more time to-day than later."

Stella answered: "I am ready any time."

Charles Herne asked Penloe: "What time would you like to leave here?"

Penloe said: "About two."

"Well," said Charles, "I will have the boy bring the team round for you
at that time."

It was two o'clock but the team had not yet been brought to the front of
the house. Charles Herne had gone out to the orchard and Clara was
elsewhere in the house. Penloe and Stella were in the parlor.

Penloe said: "Stella, I will go up to the barn and see if the team is
ready." So out he went.

While Penloe had gone to the barn for the team, Clara Herne entered the
parlor, with a paper in her hand, and called Stella's attention to a
criticism on the sex reform movement.

When Clara entered the parlor, Stella was standing looking at an oil
painting on the wall. Stella took the paper, and sat down on the nearest
chair. Mrs. Herne went out in the kitchen, and there was Mrs. Wentworth
and her child, who was about three years of age. Mrs. Wentworth's
husband was poor, and they lived on a small, rented place, near the
Herne ranch. Mrs. Wentworth belonged to that type of woman who has very
little inclination for solving the problems of the Universe or settling
the affairs of the nation, but who seem always to have a great amount of
leisure to devote to the doings of her neighbors. It was seldom that
Mrs. Herne had company but that Mrs. Wentworth found some kind of errand
to her house.

One day at dinner Mrs. Herne, in a humorous way, said: "I think Mrs.
Wentworth is owing me for about twenty-seven lots of yeast, forty-two
little lots of butter, sufficient matches to light all the fires in
Orangeville for six months, enough loaves of bread to feed a multitude,
for she often is out of bread or had bad luck with her baking. I have
let her have more milk than would be required to drown herself in, and,
as for coal-oil, why the quantity that she has borrow