having been looked over and
discussed by the Committee appointed for that purpose, were thought
worth listening to. The variety of topics considered was very great.
The young ladies of the village and the Institute had their favorite
subjects, the young gentlemen a different set of topics, and the
occasional outside contributors their own; so that one who happened
to be admitted to a meeting never knew whether he was going to hear an
account of recent arctic discoveries, or an essay on the freedom of the
will, or a psychological experience, or a story, or even a poem.

Of late there had been a tendency to discuss the questions relating to
the true status and the legitimate social functions of woman. The most
conflicting views were held on the subject. Many of the young ladies
and some of the University students were strong in defence of all the
"woman's rights" doctrines. Some of these young people were extreme
in their views. They had read about Semiramis and Boadicea and Queen
Elizabeth, until they were ready, if they could get the chance, to
vote for a woman as President of the United States or as General of
the United States Army. They were even disposed to assert the physical
equality of woman to man, on the strength of the rather questionable
history of the Amazons, and especially of the story, believed to be
authentic, of the female body-guard of the King of Dahomey,--females
frightful enough to need no other weapon than their looks to scare off
an army of Cossacks.

Miss Lurida Vincent, gold medallist of her year at the Corinna
Institute, was the leader of these advocates of virile womanhood. It was
rather singular that she should have elected to be the apostle of this
extreme doctrine, for she was herself far better equipped with
brain than muscles. In fact, she was a large-headed, large-eyed,
long-eyelashed, slender-necked, slightly developed young woman; looking
almost like a child at an age when many of the girls had reached their
full stature and proportions. In her studies she was so far in advance
of her different classes that there was always a wide gap between her
and the second scholar. So fatal to all rivalry had she proved herself
that she passed under the school name of The Terror. She learned so
easily that she undervalued her own extraordinary gifts, and felt the
deepest admiration for those of her friends endowed with faculties of an
entirely different and almost opposite nature. After sitting a