e never referred, in her shaking hand. What brought a girl like
that here?--was the question on the few thoughtful faces in the crowd
confronting her. She answered the query by introducing the resolution in
an earnest little speech which, if it didn't show that much of the
failure and suffering that darken the face of the world is due to
women's false position, showed, at all events, that this young creature
held a burning conviction that the subjection of her sex was the world's
Root-Evil. With no apparent apprehension of the colossal audacity of her
position, the girl moved gravely that 'this meeting demands of the
Government the insertion of an enfranchisement clause in the Plural
Voting Bill, and demands that it shall become law during the present
session.' Her ignorance of Parliamentary procedure was freely pointed
out to her.

'No,' she said, 'it is you who are ignorant--of how pressing the need
is. You say it is "out of order." If treating the women of the country
fairly is out of order, it is only because men have made a poor sort of
order. It is the _order_ that should be changed.'

Of course that dictum received its due amount of hooting.

'The vote is the reward for defending the country,' said a voice.

'No,' said the girl promptly, 'for soldiers and sailors don't vote.'

'It implies fitness for military service,' somebody amended.

'It _shouldn't_,' said Nineteen, calmly; 'it ought to imply merely _a
stake_ in the country. No one denies we have that.'

The crowd kept on about soldiering, till the speaker was goaded into
saying--

'I don't say women like fighting, but women _can_ fight! In these days
warfare isn't any more a matter of great physical strength, and a woman
can pull a trigger as well as a man. The Boer women found that out--and
so has the Russian. I don't like thinking about it myself--for I seem to
realize too clearly what horrors those women endured before they could
carry bombs or shoulder rifles.'

'Rifles? Why a woman can't never hit _nothing_.'

'It is quite true we can't most of us even throw a stone straight--the
great mass of women never in all their lives wanted to hit anybody or
anything. And that'--she came nearer, and leaned over the side of the
cart with scared face--'it's that that makes it so dreadful to realize
how at last when women's eyes are opened--when they see their homes and
the holiest things in life threatened and despised, how quickly after
all _they can le