ght nothing about its looks one way or the other. It was rather
red when Betty came in, and she was making it rapidly redder with the
vigorous ministrations of a man's-size handkerchief.

She greeted Betty with a cordial "how-de-doo," motioned her to the other
chair at the table (Betty had a fleeting wish that she might have dusted
it before she sat down), and asked what she could do for her.

"I'm from Mr. Remington's office," Betty said, "Remington and Evans.
He wrote you a note this morning about some cottages that belong to a
cousin of his, Mrs. Brewster-Smith."

"I answered that note by his own messenger," said E. Eliot. "He should
have got the reply before this." "Oh, he got it," said Betty, "and
was rather upset about it. What I've come for, is to urge you to
reconsider."

E. Eliot smiled rather grimly at her blotting-pad, looked up at Betty,
and allowed her smile to change its quality. What she said was not
what she had meant to say before she looked up. E. Eliot was always
upbraiding herself for being sentimental about youth and beauty in her
own sex. She'd never been beautiful, and she'd never been young--not
young like Betty. But the upbraidings never did any good.

She said: "I thought I had considered sufficiently when I answered Mr.
Remington's note. But it's possible I hadn't. What is it you think I may
have overlooked?"

"Why," said Betty, "George thought the reason you wouldn't take the
cottages was because a woman owned them. He used it as a sort of example
of how women wouldn't stick together. He said that you probably knew
that women were unreasonable and hard to deal with and didn't want the
bother."

It disconcerted Betty a little that E. Eliot interposed no denial at
this point, though she'd paused to give her the opportunity.

"You see," she went on a little breathlessly, "I'm for women suffrage
and economic independence and all that. I think it's perfectly wonderful
that you should be doing what you are--showing that women can be just
as successful in business as men can. Of course I know that you've got
a perfect _right_ to do just what a man would do--refuse to take a piece
of business that wasn't worth while. But--but what we hope is, and what
we want to show men is, that when women get into politics and business
they'll be better and less selfish."

"Which do you mean will be better?" E. Eliot inquired. "The politics and
the business, or the women?"

"I mean the politics and the