men can manage to keep quiet for a minute, I'll
tell you a little about our tactics,' she said obligingly.

'We know! Breakin' up meetings!'

'_Rotten_ tactics!'

'That only shows you don't understand them yet. Now I'll explain to
you.'

A little wind had sprung up and ruffled her hair. It blew open her long
plain coat. It even threatened to carry away her foolish flapping hat.
She held it on at critical moments, and tilted her delicate little
Greuze-like face at a bewitching angle, and all the while that she was
looking so fetching, she was briskly trouncing by turns the Liberal
party and the delighted crowd. The man of the long moustachios, who had
been swept to the other side of the monument, returned to his old
inquiry with mounting cheer--

'Are we down'earted? _Oh_, no!'

'Pore man! 'Ave a little pity on us, miss!'

There were others who edged nearer, narrowing their eyes and squaring
their shoulders as much as to say, 'Now we'll just trip her up at the
first opportunity.'

'That's a very black cloud, miss,' Gorringe had whispered several
minutes before a big raindrop had fallen on the lady's upturned face.

As Gorringe seemed to be the only one who had observed the overclouding
of the sky, so she seemed to be the only one to think it mattered much.
But one by one, like some species of enormous black 'four-o-clocks,'
umbrellas blossomed above the undergrowth at the foot of the monument.
The lady of the purple plumes had long vanished. A few others moved off,
head turned over shoulder, as if doubtful of the policy of leaving while
Ernestine was explaining things. The great majority turned up their coat
collars and stood their ground. The maid hurriedly produced an umbrella
and held it over the lady.

''Igher up, please, miss! Caun't see,' said a youth behind.

Nothing cloudy about Ernestine's policy: Independence of all parties,
and organized opposition to whatever Government was in power, until
something was done to prove it that friend to women it pretended to be.

'We are tired of being lied to and cheated. There isn't a man in the
world whose promise at election time I would trust!'

It struck some common chord in the gathering. They roared with
appreciation, partly to hear that baby saying it.

'No, not one!' she repeated stoutly, taking the raindrops in her face,
while the risen wind tugged at her wide hat. 'They'll promise us heaven,
and earth, and the moon, and the stars, just to get our he