ing Vivien
Rossiter soon afterwards I said, "How _could_ you?" "How could I
what?" "Dine with the people you once hated." "Oh I don't know, it's
all past and done with; we've got the Vote and somehow after those
years in Brussels I seem to have no hates and few loves
left"--However this is anticipating. I only insert this protest
because I may seem to be expressing a bitterness the protagonists
have ceased to feel, a triumph at the victory of their cause which
produces in them merely a yawn.

Where is Mrs. Pankhurst? Somehow one thought she would never rest
till she was in the Cabinet. And Christabel? And Annie Kenney?
Married perchance to some permanent under Secretary of State and
viewing "direct action" with growing disapproval.

And the Pethick Lawrences? Some one told me the other day that
they'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be forcibly fed.

But in November, 1910, we all--we that were whole-hearted reformers,
true Liberals, not wolves in sheep's clothing, took very much to
heart what happened on the 18th of that month, when the Prime
Minister of the time announced that the Conference between the House
of Lords and the House of Commons on the Veto question having broken
down he had advised His Majesty to dissolve Parliament. This meant
that the Conciliation Bill was _finally_ done for; while the
declaration of the Prime Minister as to the future Programme of the
Liberal Party, if it was returned to power, excluded any mention of
a Woman's enfranchisement Bill.

On Black Friday, November 18th, Vivie was present at the meeting in
Caxton Hall when Mrs. Pankhurst explained the position to the
Suffragist women assembled there. Her blood was fired by the recital
of their wrongs and she was prominent among the four hundred and
fifty volunteers who came forward to accompany Mrs. Pankhurst, Dr.
Garret Anderson and Susan Knipper-Totes (the two last, infirm old
ladies) when they proposed to march to the Houses of Parliament to
exercise their right of presenting a petition.

The women proceeded to Parliament Square in small groups so as to
keep within the letter of the law. Some like Vivie carried banners
with pitiful devices--"Where there's a Bill there's a Way," "Women's
Will Beats Asquith's Skill," and so on.... She wished she had given
more direct attention to these mottoes, but much of this procedure
had been got up on impulse and little preparation made. It was near
to four o'clock on a fine November afte