d the
Tragic Muse, as McCall called her. "Away with all worn-out garments of
a degraded Past! Shall the rebellious serf of man still wear his old
clothes?"

"But," whispered McCall to Bluhm, "when will the great thinkers you
talked of begin to speak on those mighty truths--"

"Patience! These are our great thinkers. The logical heads some
of them have! Woman," standing up and beginning aloud, apropos to
nothing--"Woman is destined to purify the ballot-box, reform the
jury, whiten the ermine of the judge. [Applause.] When her divine
intuitions, her calm reason, are brought into play--" Prolonged
applause, in the midst of which Bluhm, again apropos to nothing,
abruptly sat down.

"The order of the day," said the little woman in black, "is, Shall
marriage--"

"What about the car company?"

"Let's shelve that."

"The question of marriage," began Bluhm, up again with a statelier
wrap of his toga, "is the most momentous affecting mankind. It demands
free speech, the freest speech. Are we resolved to approach it in
proud humility, giving to the God within ourselves and within our
neighbor freedom to declare the truth?"

"Ay!" "Ay!" from forty voices. Maria, pale and trembling, watched
McCall.

"Free speech is our boast," piped the widow. "If not ours, whose?"

"Before you go any farther," said the Muse with studied politeness,
"I have a question to put to Herr Bluhm. Did you did you not, sir,
in Toombs's drug-store last week, denominate this club a caravan of
idiots?" A breathless silence fell upon the assembly. Bluhm gasped
inarticulately. "His face condemns him," pursued his accuser. "Shall
such a man be allowed to speak among us? Ay, to take the lead among
us?"

Cries of "No!" "No!"

"What becomes of your free speech?" cried Bluhm, red and stammering
with fury. "I was angry. I am rough, perhaps, but I seek the truth,
as those do not who"--advancing and shaking his shut hand at the
Muse--"who 'smile and smile, and are a villain still.'"

"The order of the day"--the widow's voice rose above the din
tranquilly--"_is_ Shall marriage in the Consolidated Republic be
contracted for life or for a term of years?"

The next moment Maria felt her arm grasped. "Come out of this,"
whispered McCall, angry and excited. "This is no place for you, Maria.
Did you hear what they are going to discuss?"

"Yes," as he whisked her out of the door.

"Then I'm sorry for it. Such things oughtn't to be mentioned in a
lady's pre