r Steele, "to add just a word or two to emphasise one
particular point in Mr Boult's speech; or, rather, to put it in a
somewhat different light. And I shall be brief, lest I spoil the
general effect on your minds of his very powerful appeal.

"I address myself to the women in this room. . . . With _you_ the
last word lies, as it rightly should. It is to _you_ that husband,
son, brother, wooer, will turn for the deciding voice to say,
'Go, help to save England--and may God prosper and guard you';
because it is your heart that makes the sacrifice, as it is your
image the man will carry away with him; because the England he goes
to defend shapes itself in his mind as 'home,' as the one most sacred
spot, though it be but a cottage, in which his imagination or his
memory installs you as queen; in which your presence reigns, or is to
reign.

"Do you realise your strength, O ye women? . . . The age of chivalry
is not dead. Nothing so noble that has once so nobly taken hold of
men's minds can ever die, though the form of it may change. Now the
doctrine of chivalry was this, for the Man and the Woman--

"For the man, that every true soldier went forth as a knight:"

'And no quarrell a knight he ought to take
But for a Truth or for a Woman's sake.'

"And our soldiers to-day fight for both: for the truth that Right is
better than Might, and for the sake of every woman who reigns or
shall reign in an English home; that not only shall she be
safeguarded from the satyr and the violator, but that she shall be
secured in every inch of dignity she has known in our days; as queen
at the hearth where her children obey her, and in her doorway to
which the merchants of all the earth bring their wares.

"For the Woman, chivalry taught that she, who cannot herself fight,
is always the Queen of Tournay, the president of the quarrel, the
arbitress between the righteous and the unrighteous cause, the
dispenser of reward to him who fights the good fight. . . . So, and
as each one of you is the braver to speak the word--'Go, though it
break my heart: and God bring you safely home to me!'--she shall with
the heavenlier right tender her true soldier his crown when he
returns and kneels for a blessing on his victory."

When the speeches were ended and Farmer Best arose to invite
intending recruits to step up to the platform, Mr Boult had an
unhappy inspiration. "If you'll excuse me, Mr Chairman," he
suggested, "there's a way