Nell of Shorne Mills

At the end of the room, behind a small table, stood a woman, still

young, dressed in a tailor-made suit of masculine pattern and cut. Her

hair was pretty in color and texture, but it was cut almost close, and

just touched the collar of her covert coat. She wore a bowler hat, her

gloves were on the table in front of her--thick, dogskin gloves, like a

man's. She held a roll of paper in her hand, which was bare of rings,

though feminine enough in size and shape. A pince-nez was balanced on

her nose, and her chin--really a pretty chin--was held high in an

aggressive manner.

Nell had an idea that this was Lady Wolfer, and she edged as close to

the wall as she could, and watched and listened to the speaker with a

natural curiosity and anxiety.

"To conclude," the orator was saying, with a wave of the roll of paper

and a jerk of the chin, "to conclude, we are banded together to wage a

war against our old tyrant--a war of equity and right. Oh, my sisters,

do not let us falter, do not let us return the sword to the scabbard

until we have cleaved our way to that goal toward which the eyes of

suffering womanhood have been drawn since the gospel of equal rights for

both sexes sounded its first evangel!"

It was evidently the close, the peroration, of the speech; there was a

burst of applause, much clapping of hands, and immediately afterward a

kind of stampede to some tables, behind which a couple of footmen were

preparing to dispense light refreshments.

Nell, much mystified, and rather shy and frightened, remained where she

was; and she was just upon the point of inquiring for Lady Wolfer, when

the recent speaker came down the room, talking with one and another of

the presumably less hungry mob, and catching sight of Nell's slight and

rather shrinking figure, advanced toward her.

"This is a new disciple, I suppose," she said, smiling through her

eyeglasses.

"I--I wish to see Lady Wolfer," said Nell, trying not to blush.

"I am Lady Wolfer," said the youngish lady with the short hair and

mannish suit; and she spoke in a gentler voice than Nell would have been

inclined to credit her with.

"I am--I am Nell Lorton."

Lady Wolfer looked puzzled for a moment; then she laughed and held out

her hand.

"Really? Why, how young and----" She was going to say "pretty," but

stopped in time. "Did you wire? But of course you did. I must have

forgotten. I have such a mass of correspondence!" She laughed again. "I

thought you were a new disciple! Come with me!"