“I wasn’t really,” explained Mr. Folk. “I just walked and talked naturally. It made rather a sensation at the time. Your mother was a genius. You have never thought of going on the stage yourself?” She would build again the Forum. The people’s business should no longer be settled for them behind lackey-guarded doors. The good of the farm labourer should be determined not exclusively by the squire and his relations. The man with the hoe, the man with the bent back and the patient ox-like eyes: he, too, should be invited to the Council board. Middle-class domestic problems should be solved not solely by fine gentlemen from Oxford; the wife of the little clerk should be allowed her say. War or peace, it should no longer be regarded as a question concerning only the aged rich. The common people—the cannon fodder, the men who would die, and the women who would weep: they should be given something more than the privilege of either cheering platform patriots or being summoned for interrupting public meetings.!

“Enough for the two of them?” demanded Mr. Singleton. “Because he will want them. Now think before you speak.” The moon had risen clear of the entangling pines. It rode serene and free.

She told Joan what she remembered herself of 1870. She had turned her country house into a hospital and had seen a good deal of the fighting. “Why do you do it?” asked Miss Ensor. “Did you talk it over with her?” asked Joan.