been the most sumptuous in her wardrobe.

"The poor dears," she said, "want something to brighten their lives.
Besides, they'll take it as a compliment to them if I'm like Solomon
in all his glory."

I gathered from this remark that the audience was to consist mainly of
the wives and sisters of McConkey and other men of the same class.
Cahoon's wife, if he had one, would not require a display of Lady
Moyne's best clothes to seal her attachment to the Union.

The speech was an uncommonly good one. A phrase in it frequently
repeated, appealed to me very strongly. Lady Moyne spoke about "our
men." I do not know why it is, but the phrase "our women" as used for
instance by military officers who have been to India, always strikes
me as singularly offensive. It suggests seraglios, purdahs and other
institutions by which Turks, and Orientals generally, assert and
maintain the rights of property with regard to the other sex. "Our
men," on the other hand, is redolent of sentimental domesticity. I
never hear it without thinking of women who are mothers and makers of
men; who sew on trouser buttons and cook savoury messes for those who
are fighting the battle of life for them in a rough world, sustained
by an abiding vision of noble womanhood and the sanctity of home. It
is an extraordinarily appealing phrase and Lady Moyne used it for all
it was worth. As addressed by her to wives and sisters of the Belfast
working-men, it had a further value. The plural possessive pronoun
bracketed McConkey with Lord Moyne. McConkey's wife, assuming for the
moment that he had not abstained from matrimony as he had from
tobacco, shared his joys and sorrows, his hopes and fears, heartened
him for his daily toil, would join no doubt in polishing the muzzle of
the machine gun. So Lady Moyne in her gorgeous raiment, sustained Lord
Moyne, her man. That was the suggestion of the possessive pronoun, and
the audience was not allowed to miss it. Poor Moyne did miss it, for
he was nearly asleep in a chair. But McConkey's wife would not. Her
heart would glow with a sense that she and Lady Moyne were sisters in
their anxious care for the men entrusted to them.

That single phrase made such a violent emotional appeal to me that I
missed all the rest of the speech. Each time I began to recover a
little from hearing it and was prepared to give my attention to
something else, Lady Moyne used to repeat it, and then I was
hypnotized again. I have no doubt, ho