t, was taking a
continuous interest in matters of playgrounds and parks, clean streets
and city planning. The Society for Social Progress, almost exclusively
feminine, was continuously astir about pure milk and factory laws,
birth-rates and infant mortality, sociology and eugenics. And now here
was the conservative Woman's Club, which had been purely literary and
social for a quarter of a century, holding a largely attended symposium
on How Shall We Help the Poor?

This latter meeting, attended by Carlisle Heth and her cousin Henrietta
the day after Canning left, was no doubt a trivial and obscure
occurrence. Not an earthly thing could be said for it, except that it
was a bubble on the surface of an unrest which would one day change the
face of human society....

The two cousins, having come a little tardy, were content with seats in
the next to the last row. The Woman's Club inhabited an old family
mansion on Washington Street,--bought in the legendary age when land was
not computed by the square foot,--and its assembly-rooms were the
one-time parlors, with the dining-room thrown in by an architectural
dexterity. Perhaps two hundred women could be seated here, and all
seemed to be present to-day. Cally regarded serried rows of feminine
backs, some of which she recognized. The little platform at the farther
end of the rooms remained empty, and the place was abuzz with murmured
talk. Not a back was silent, not even Henrietta's. Hen was saying
enthusiastically that nothing like this could have been seen ten
years ago....

Cally caught widening glimpses of the Cooney meanings. She had been like
a rider thrown from a gay fixed steed in a merry-go-round, who, having
picked himself up and mended his wounds, looks about, and gets his first
view of the carousel as part of a larger moving scene. Cally, for the
first time in her life, had been glancing over the fair-grounds. Not
even the knowledge of Hugo's love could now wholly turn her
gaze backward.

Pending the beginning of the oratory, clubbers and guests talked to the
contentment of their hearts. Cally said suddenly:

"Hen, why is it that men are so opposed to this sort of thing?"

"It's human," said Hen, "if you have the upper hand, not to want to give
it up."

"You mean that men have the upper hand now?"

"Haven't they?"

A tiny little woman in the row ahead of them turned round and smiled
faintly at Henrietta. She had a face like a small doll's, a button of a