ass meeting the Monday evening before the election Tuesday. This was
not without opposition from within each party, and there were some who
hinted darkly that it might not come off.

All through the Monday preceding the debate Gertrude Van Deusen worked
in her library, to prepare her speech for the evening. She had become
familiar enough with her own voice so that she spoke easily and well to
audiences of all sizes and degrees of intelligence, but this evening was
to witness a trial of strength, a matching of wits which put her on her
mettle. For John Allingham was a fine speaker, with a magnetic presence,
clear logic, and a control of his audience that made him a powerful
opponent, and Gertrude Van Deusen, although she would have died rather
than own it, trembled secretly at the coming contest.

At six she ate her dinner with as much calmness as was possible under
the circumstances, and proceeded to dress for the evening. She was one
of the women who realize that appearances count with an audience, as
well as words, and she put on her most becoming array. At half-past
seven her maid came up from the door:

"They've sent for you," she announced. "An automobile is at the door."

"Why, I didn't know the committee was going to send for me," said Miss
Van Deusen. "I ordered the carriage for a quarter to eight. Go down and
ask the chauffeur--no, never mind. It's all right, no doubt. I'll go
with him. Call up Thomas and tell him he needn't take the horses out
tonight. But first hand me my fur coat and put on my over-shoes."

The maid obeyed and in five minutes more Gertrude Van Deusen was being
tucked into the electric cab, by a chauffeur well wrapped up and muffled
to his ears. The glass doors were closed tightly, Gertrude
congratulating herself that she was shut away from the cold, clear
January air, and that her horses might stand in their comfortable
stalls. And then they whizzed away.

It was some moments before she noticed that they were going up the
street instead of down it; but immediately she remembered that the city
was repaving one of the streets between her home and the hall where she
was to appear, and since they were evidently going to take the "longer
way around" she settled back in her seat and began, once more, to
rehearse the carefully-prepared speech for the evening. She had gone
nearly through with it when she noticed that the streets, instead of
being more thickly settled as they approached her inte