t. I'm fifty-five, and I dare say I shall be in my grave by
the time we get it--if we ever do."

"Oh, no, you won't be in your grave," said Mary, kindly.

"It'll be such a great day," said Mrs. Seal, with a toss of her locks.
"A great day, not only for us, but for civilization. That's what I feel,
you know, about these meetings. Each one of them is a step onwards in
the great march--humanity, you know. We do want the people after us to
have a better time of it--and so many don't see it. I wonder how it is
that they don't see it?"

She was carrying plates and cups from the cupboard as she spoke, so that
her sentences were more than usually broken apart. Mary could not help
looking at the odd little priestess of humanity with something like
admiration. While she had been thinking about herself, Mrs. Seal had
thought of nothing but her vision.

"You mustn't wear yourself out, Sally, if you want to see the great
day," she said, rising and trying to take a plate of biscuits from Mrs.
Seal's hands.

"My dear child, what else is my old body good for?" she exclaimed,
clinging more tightly than before to her plate of biscuits. "Shouldn't
I be proud to give everything I have to the cause?--for I'm not an
intelligence like you. There were domestic circumstances--I'd like to
tell you one of these days--so I say foolish things. I lose my head,
you know. You don't. Mr. Clacton doesn't. It's a great mistake, to lose
one's head. But my heart's in the right place. And I'm so glad Kit has a
big dog, for I didn't think her looking well."

They had their tea, and went over many of the points that had been
raised in the committee rather more intimately than had been possible
then; and they all felt an agreeable sense of being in some way behind
the scenes; of having their hands upon strings which, when pulled, would
completely change the pageant exhibited daily to those who read the
newspapers. Although their views were very different, this sense united
them and made them almost cordial in their manners to each other.

Mary, however, left the tea-party rather early, desiring both to be
alone, and then to hear some music at the Queen's Hall. She fully
intended to use her loneliness to think out her position with regard to
Ralph; but although she walked back to the Strand with this end in view,
she found her mind uncomfortably full of different trains of thought.
She started one and then another. They seemed even to take their color
f