r even searching for a knife.

She had been deceived. The man, whoever he was, had dismissed her when
every moment was precious, and was himself not even trying to help.
Nay, it might be . . .

She fought down the horror of it and rushed up the stair to fight the
thing, man or devil, and save her mistress. On her way she fumbled for
the scissors in her pocket. As she broke into the garret the barber,
leaving the bundle to swing from its rope, stepped off the stool and,
darting to a corner of the room, seemed to stand at bay there.
Kirstie sprang toward the stool and hacked at the rope. As the body
dropped she faced around on the man's corner, meaning to kill or be
killed.

But there was no man in the corner. Her eyes searched into its dusk, and
met only the shadow of the sloping attic. He had gone without a sound.
There had been no sound in the room but the thud of Mrs. Johnstone's body,
and this thud seemed to Kirstie to be taken up and echoed by the blow of
her own forehead upon the boards as she fell across the feet of her
mistress.

THE MAZED ELECTION (1768).

A PASSAGE FROM THE ORAL HISTORY OF ARDEVORA.

I.

Woman Suffrage? It's surprising to me how light some folks will talk--
with a Providence, for all they know, waiting round the corner to take
them at their word. I put my head in at the Working Man's Institute
last night, and there was the new Coastguard officer talking like a book,
arguing about Woman Suffrage in a way that made me nervous. "Look 'ee
here," he was saying, "a woman must be either married, or unmarried, or
otherwise. Keep they three divisions clear in your heads, and then I'll
ask you to follow me--" And all the company sitting round with their
mouths open. I came away: I couldn't stand it. It put me in mind how my
poor mother used to warn me against squinting for fun. "One of these
days," she'd say, "the wind'll take and change sudden while you're doing
it; and there you'll be fixed and looking fifty ways for Sunday until we
meet in the land of marrow and fatness."

And here in Ardevora, of all places!--where the womenkind be that
masterful already, a man must get into his sea-boots before he can call
his soul his own. Why, there was a woman here once that never asked for a
vote in her life, and yet capsized an Election for Parliament--candidates,
voters, and the whole apple-cart--as easy as you might turn over a plate.
Did you ever hear tell of Kitty Le