arliament by the League of Equal Sex
Rights and Complete Emancipation for Women, as a diminutive,
half-starved servant brought in a letter on a tray.

Mrs. Jennings took the missive, and frowning threateningly at the girl,
who withdrew to the dark recesses of the servants' quarters, opened it
by slitting its throat with a terrific paper-knife.

'8 CHELMSFORD GARDENS.

'DEAR MRS LE ROY JENNINGS,--An American author is coming to dinner next
Friday. There will just be a few _unusual_ people, and I have asked
them for 8.30. I want him to meet one of England's intellectual women,
and I _know_ he will be interested to hear of your ideas on the New
Home.

'My daughter joins with me in wishing you every success.--Until Friday,
dear,

'SYBIL DURWENT.'

Mrs. Jennings, who had made a complete failure of her own home, and
consequently felt qualified to interfere with all others, scribbled a
hasty note of acceptance in a handwriting so forceful that on some
words the pen slid off the paper completely.

Then, with a look of profundity, she resumed the Resolution.

VI.

And so, by the medium of His Majesty's mail, a little group of actors
were warned for a performance at Lady Durwent's house, No. 8 Chelmsford
Gardens.

Through the November fog the endless traffic of the streets was
cautiously feeling its way along the diverging channels of the
Metropolis--a snorting, sliding, impatient fleet of vehicles
perpetually on their way, yet never seeming to get there. Taxi-cabs
hugged the pavements, trying to penetrate the gloom with their meagre
lights; omnibuses fretted and bullied their way, avoiding collision by
inches, but struggling on and on as though their very existence
depended on their reaching some place immediately or being interned for
failure. Hansom-cabs, with ancient, glistening horses driven by
ancient, glistening cabbies, felt for elbow-space in the throng of
motor-vehicles. And on all sides the badinage of the streets, the
eternal wordy conflict of London's mariners of traffic, rose in
cheerful, insulting abundance.

On the pavements pedestrians jostled each other--men with hands in
their pockets and arms tight to their sides, women with piqued noses
and hurrying steps; while sulky lamps offered half-hearted resistance
to the conquering fog that settled over palaces, parks, and motley
streets until it hugged the very Thames itself in unholy glee.

And through the impenetrable mist of circumstanc