ecution, and a hush of extreme
admiration--it was divine, divine, ravishing--when he had finished. The
speaker was a learned female pundit from India, and her object was to
interest the women of America in the condition of their unfortunate
Hindoo sisters. It appeared that thousands and tens of thousands of them
were doomed to early and lifelong widowhood, owing to the operation of
cruel caste laws, which condemned even girls betrothed to deceased
Brahmins to perpetual celibacy. This fate could only be alleviated by the
education and elevation of women. And money was needed for schools,
especially for medical schools, which would break down the walls of
prejudice and enfranchise the sex. The appeal was so charmingly made that
every one was moved by it, especially the maiden ladies present, who
might be supposed to enter into the feelings of their dusky sisters
beyond the seas. The speaker said, with a touch of humor that always
intensifies a serious discourse, that she had been told that in one of
the New England States there was a superfluity of unmarried women; but
this was an entirely different affair; it was a matter of choice with
these highly educated and accomplished women. And the day had come when
woman could make her choice! At this there was a great clapping of hands.
It was one thing to be free to lead a life of single self-culture, and
quite another to be compelled to lead a single fife without self-culture.
The address was a great success, and much enthusiasm spread abroad for
the cause of the unmarried women of India.

In the audience were Mrs. Eschelle and her daughter. Margaret and Carmen
were made acquainted, and were drawn together by curiosity, and perhaps
by a secret feeling of repulsion. Carmen was all candor and sweetness,
and absorbingly interested in the women of India, she said. With
Margaret's permission she would come and see her, for she believed they
had common friends.

It would seem that there could not be much sympathy between natures so
opposed, persons who looked at life from such different points of view,
but undeniably Carmen had a certain attraction for Margaret. The New
Englander, whose climate is at once his enemy and his tonic, always longs
for the tropics, which to him are a region of romance, as Italy is to the
German. In his nature, also, there is something easily awakened to the
allurements of a sensuous existence, and to a desire for a freer
experience of life than custom h