ly of his mother's
invitation; and she replied that she didn't know whether she should have
much time in the future to give to people who already approved of her
views: she expected to have her hands full with the others, who didn't.

"Does your scheme of work exclude all distraction, all recreation,
then?" the young man inquired; and his look expressed real suspense.

Verena referred the matter, as usual, with her air of bright, ungrudging
deference, to her companion. "Does it, should you say--our scheme of
work?"

"I am afraid the distraction we have had this afternoon must last us for
a long time," Olive said, without harshness, but with considerable
majesty.

"Well, now, _is_ he to be respected?" Verena demanded, as the two young
women took their way through the early darkness, pacing quietly side by
side, in their winter-robes, like women consecrated to some holy office.

Olive turned it over a moment. "Yes, very much--as a pianist!"

Verena went into town with her in the horse-car--she was staying in
Charles Street for a few days--and that evening she startled Olive by
breaking out into a reflexion very similar to the whimsical falterings
of which she herself had been conscious while they sat in Mr. Burrage's
pretty rooms, but against which she had now violently reacted.

"It would be very nice to do that always--just to take men as they are,
and not to have to think about their badness. It would be very nice not
to have so many questions, but to think they were all comfortably
answered, so that one could sit there on an old Spanish leather chair,
with the curtains drawn and keeping out the cold, the darkness, all the
big, terrible, cruel world--sit there and listen for ever to Schubert
and Mendelssohn. _They_ didn't care anything about female suffrage! And
I didn't feel the want of a vote to-day at all, did you?" Verena
inquired, ending, as she always ended in these few speculations, with an
appeal to Olive.

This young lady thought it necessary to give her a very firm answer. "I
always feel it--everywhere--night and day. I feel it _here_"; and Olive
laid her hand solemnly on her heart. "I feel it as a deep, unforgettable
wrong; I feel it as one feels a stain that is on one's honour."

Verena gave a clear laugh, and after that a soft sigh, and then said,
"Do you know, Olive, I sometimes wonder whether, if it wasn't for you, I
should feel it so very much!"

"My own friend," Olive replied, "you have neve