is throat till it ached with the
tension. His lips quivered and turned pale as he heard the slow sweep
of a woman's dress, and there she stood before him, with smiling face
and extended hand. "Are you Mr. Talcott? Did you want to see me?"

She had the frank gesture and ready smile a kindly man would have used.
Instantly his brain cleared, his heart ceased to pound, and the
numbness left his limbs. He forgot himself utterly. He only saw and
heard her. He found himself saying:

"I wanted to come in and tell you how much I liked your speech last
night, and how much I liked a speech you made up at Rock River, at the
grange picinic."

"Oh, did you hear me up there? That was one of my old speeches. I've
quite outgrown that now. You'll be shocked to know I don't believe in
a whole lot of things that I used to believe in." As she talked, she
looked at him precisely as one man looks at another, without the
slightest false modesty or coquettishness. She evidently considered him
a fellow-student on social affairs. "I'm glad you liked my talk on the
woman question. It was dreadfully radical to the most of my audience."

"It was right," Bradley said, and their minds seemed to come together
at that point as if by an electrical shock. "I never thought of it
before. Women have been kept down. We do claim to know better what she
ought to do than she knows herself. The trouble is we men don't think
about it at all. We need to have you tell us these things."

"Yes, that's true. As soon as I made that discovery I began talking the
woman question. One radicalism opened the way to the other. Being a
radical is like opening the door to the witches. Are you one?" she
asked, with a sudden smile, "I mean a radical, not a witch."

"I don't know," he replied simply, "I'm a student. I know I can't agree
with some people on these things."

"_Some_ people! Sometimes I feel it would be good to meet with a single
person--a single one--I could agree with! But tell me of yourself--are
you in the grange movement?"

"Well, not exactly, but I've helped all I could."

"What is the condition of the grange in your county?"

"It seems to be going down."

She was silent for some time. Her face saddened with deep thought.
"Yes, I'm afraid it is. The farmers can't seem to hold together.
Strange, aint it? Other trades and occupations have their organizations
and stand by each other, but the farmer can't seem to feel his kinship.
Well, I suppose he must