She had worked hard and was very hot,
but still she had sufficient presence of mind to remember her
demeanour.

When the tumult was a little subsided, Lady Selina Protest got up to
move a vote of thanks. She was sitting on the left-hand side of the
Chair, and rose so silently that Lady George had at first thought that
the affair was all over, and that they might go away. Alas, alas! there
was more to be borne yet! Lady Selina spoke with a clear but low voice,
and though she was quite audible, and an earl's sister, did not evoke
any enthusiasm. She declared that the thanks of every woman in England
were due to the Baroness for her exertions, and of every man who wished
to be regarded as the friend of women. But Lady Selina was very quiet,
making no gestures, and was indeed somewhat flat. When she sat down no
notice whatever was taken of her. Then very quickly, before Lady George
had time to look about her, the Doctor was on her feet. It was her task
to second the vote of thanks, but she was far too experienced an
occupant of platforms to waste her precious occasion simply on so poor
a task. She began by declaring that never in her life had a duty been
assigned to her more consonant to her taste than that of seconding a
vote of thanks to a woman so eminent, so humanitarian, and at the same
time so essentially a female as the Baroness Banmann. Lady George, who
knew nothing about speaking, felt at once that here was a speaker who
could at any rate make herself audible and intelligible. Then the
Doctor broke away into the general subject, with special allusions to
the special matter of female architecture, and went on for twenty
minutes without dropping a word. There was a moment in which she had
almost made Lady George think that women ought to build houses. Her
dislike to the American twang had vanished, and she was almost sorry
when Miss Doctor Fleabody resumed her seat.

But it was after that,--after the Baroness had occupied another ten
minutes in thanking the British public for the thanks that had been
given to herself,--that the supreme emotion of the evening came to Lady
George. Again she had thought, when the Baroness a second time rolled
back to her chair, that the time for departure had come. Many in the
hall, indeed, were already going, and she could not quite understand
why no one on the platform had as yet moved. Then came that bald-headed
old gentleman to her, to her very self, and suggested to her that
she