It was the habit of the Doctor and the Admiral toaccompany each other upon a morning ramble betweenbreakfast and lunch. The dwellers in those quiettree-lined roads were accustomed to see the two figures,the long, thin, austere seaman, and the short, bustling,tweed-clad physician, pass and repass with suchregularity that a stopped clock has been reset by them. The Admiral took two steps to his companion's three, butthe younger man was the quicker, and both were equal toa good four and a half miles an hour.

It was a lovely summer day which followed the eventswhich have been described. The sky was of the deepestblue, with a few white, fleecy clouds drifting lazilyacross it, and the air was filled with the low drone ofinsects or with a sudden sharper note as bee or blueflyshot past with its quivering, long-drawn hum, like aninsect tuning-fork. As the friends topped each risewhich leads up to the Crystal Palace, they could see thedun clouds of London stretching along the northernsky-line, with spire or dome breaking through thelow-lying haze. The Admiral was in high spirits, for themorning post had brought good news to his son.

"It is wonderful, Walker," he was saying, "positivelywonderful, the way that boy of mine has gone ahead duringthe last three years. We heard from Pearson to-day. Pearson is the senior partner, you know, and my boy thejunior--Pearson and Denver the firm. Cunning old dog isPearson, as cute and as greedy as a Rio shark. Yet hegoes off for a fortnight's leave, and puts my boy in fullcharge, with all that immense business in his hands,and a freehand to do what he likes with it. How's thatfor confidence, and he only three years upon 'Change?"

"Any one would confide in him. His face is asurety," said the Doctor.

"Go on, Walker!" The Admiral dug his elbow at him. "You know my weak side. Still it's truth all the same. I've been blessed with a good wife and a good son, andmaybe I relish them the more for having been cut off fromthem so long. I have much to be thankful for!"

"And so have I. The best two girls that everstepped. There's Clara, who has learned up as muchmedicine as would give her the L.S.A., simply in orderthat she may sympathize with me in my work. But hullo,what is this coming along?"

"All drawing and the wind astern!" cried the Admiral. "Fourteen knots if it's one. Why, by George, it is thatwoman!"

A rolling cloud of yellow dust had streamed round thecurve of the road, and from the heart of it had emergeda high tandem tricycle flying along at a breakneck pace. In front sat Mrs. Westmacott clad in a heather tweedpea-jacket, a skirt which just{?} passed her knees and apair of thick gaiters of the same material. She had agreat bundle of red papers under her arm, whileCharles, who sat behind her clad in Norfolk jacket andknickerbockers, bore a similar roll protruding fromeither pocket. Even as they watched, the pair eased up,the lady sprang off, impaled one of her bills upon thegarden railing of an empty house, and then jumping on toher seat again was about to hurry onwards when her nephewdrew her attention to the two gentlemen upon thefootpath.

"Oh, now, really I didn't notice you," said she,taking a few turns of the treadle and steering themachine across to them. "Is it not a beautiful morning?"

"Lovely," answered the Doctor. "You seem to be verybusy."

"I am very busy." She pointed to the colored paperwhich still fluttered from the railing. "We have beenpushing our propaganda, you see. Charles and I have beenat it since seven o'clock. It is about our meeting. Iwish it to be a great success. See!" She smoothed outone of the bills, and the Doctor read his own name ingreat black letters across the bottom.

"We don't forget our chairman, you see. Everybody iscoming. Those two dear little old maids opposite, theWilliamses, held out for some time; but I have theirpromise now. Admiral, I am sure that you wish us well."

"Hum! I wish you no harm, ma'am."

"You will come on the platform?"

"I'll be---- No, I don't think I can do that."

"To our meeting, then?"

"No, ma'am; I don't go out after dinner."

"Oh yes, you will come. I will call in if I may, andchat it over with you when you come home. We have notbreakfasted yet. Goodbye!" There was a whir of wheels,and the yellow cloud rolled away down the road again. Bysome legerdemain the Admiral found that he was clutchingin his right hand one of the obnoxious bills. Hecrumpled it up, and threw it into the roadway.

"I'll be hanged if I go, Walker," said he, as beresumed his walk. "I've never been hustled into doing athing yet, whether by woman or man."

"I am not a betting man," answered the Doctor, "butI rather think that the odds are in favor of your going."

The Admiral had hardly got home, and had just seatedhimself in his dining-room, when the attack upon him wasrenewed. He was slowly and lovingly unfolding theTimes preparatory to the long read which led up toluncheon, and had even got so far as to fasten his goldenpince-nez on to his thin, high-bridged nose, when heheard a crunching of gravel, and, looking over the top ofhis paper, saw Mrs. Westmacott coming up the garden walk. She was still dressed in the singular costume whichoffended the sailor's old-fashioned notions of propriety,but he could not deny, as he looked at her, that she wasa very fine woman. In many climes he had looked uponwomen of all shades and ages, but never upon a moreclearcut, handsome face, nor a more erect, supple, andwomanly figure. He ceased to glower as he gazed uponher, and the frown smoothed away from his rugged brow.

"May I come in?" said she, framing herself in theopen window, with a background of green sward and bluesky. "I feel like an invader deep in an enemy'scountry."

"It is a very welcome invasion, ma'am," said he,clearing his throat and pulling at his high collar. "Trythis garden chair. What is there that I can do for you? Shall I ring and let Mrs. Denver know that you are here?"

"Pray do not trouble, Admiral. I only looked in withreference to our little chat this morning. I wish thatyou would give us your powerful support at our comingmeeting for the improvement of the condition of woman."

"No, ma'am, I can't do that." He pursed up his lipsand shook his grizzled head.

"And why not?"

"Against my principles, ma'am."

"But why?"

"Because woman has her duties and man has his. I may be old-fashioned, but that is my view. Why, whatis the world coming to? I was saying to Dr. Walker onlylast night that we shall have a woman wanting to commandthe Channel Fleet next."

"That is one of the few professions which cannot beimproved," said Mrs. Westmacott, with her sweetest smile. "Poor woman must still look to man for protection."

"I don't like these new-fangled ideas, ma'am. I tellyou honestly that I don't. I like discipline, and Ithink every one is the better for it. Women have got agreat deal which they had not in the days of our fathers. They have universities all for themselves, I am told, andthere are women doctors, I hear. Surely they should restcontented. What more can they want?"

"You are a sailor, and sailors are always chivalrous. If you could see how things really are, you would changeyour opinion. What are the poor things to do? Thereare so many of them and so few things to which they canturn their hands. Governesses? But there are hardly anysituations. Music and drawing? There is not one infifty who has any special talent in that direction. Medicine? It is still surrounded with difficulties forwomen, and it takes many years and a small fortune toqualify. Nursing? It is hard work ill paid, and nonebut the strongest can stand it. What would you havethem do then, Admiral? Sit down and starve?"

"Tut, tut! It is not so bad as that."

"The pressure is terrible. Advertise for a ladycompanion at ten shillings a week, which is less than acook's wage, and see how many answers you get. There isno hope, no outlook, for these struggling thousands. Life is a dull, sordid struggle, leading down to acheerless old age. Yet when we try to bring some littleray of hope, some chance, however distant, of somethingbetter, we are told by chivalrous gentlemen that it isagainst their principles to help."

The Admiral winced, but shook his head in dissent.

"There is banking, the law, veterinary surgery,government offices, the civil service, all these at leastshould be thrown freely open to women, if they havebrains enough to compete successfully for them. Then ifwoman were unsuccessful it would be her own fault, andthe majority of the population of this country could nolonger complain that they live under a different law tothe minority, and that they are held down in poverty andserfdom, with every road to independence sealed to them."

"What would you propose to do, ma'am?"

"To set the more obvious injustices right, and soto pave the way for a reform. Now look at that mandigging in the field. I know him. He can neither readnor write, he is steeped in whisky, and he has as muchintelligence as the potatoes that he is digging. Yet theman has a vote, can possibly turn the scale of anelection, and may help to decide the policy of thisempire. Now, to take the nearest example, here am I, awoman who have had some education, who have traveled, andwho have seen and studied the institutions of manycountries. I hold considerable property, and I pay morein imperial taxes than that man spends in whisky, whichis saying a great deal, and yet I have no more directinfluence upon the disposal of the money which I pay thanthat fly which creeps along the wall. Is that right? Isit fair?"

The Admiral moved uneasily in his chair. "Yours isan exceptional case," said he.

"But no woman has a voice. Consider that the womenare a majority in the nation. Yet if there was aquestion of legislation upon which all women were agreedupon one side and all the men upon the other, it wouldappear that the matter was settled unanimously when morethan half the population were opposed to it. Is thatright?"

Again the Admiral wriggled. It was very awkward for the gallant seaman to have a handsome woman oppositeto him, bombarding him with questions to none of which hecould find an answer. "Couldn't even get the tompionsout of his guns," as he explained the matter to theDoctor that evening.

"Now those are really the points that we shall laystress upon at the meeting. The free and completeopening of the professions, the final abolition of thezenana I call it, and the franchise to all women who payQueen's taxes above a certain sum. Surely there isnothing unreasonable in that. Nothing which could offendyour principles. We shall have medicine, law, and thechurch all rallying that night for the protection ofwoman. Is the navy to be the one profession absent?"

The Admiral jumped out of his chair with an evil wordin his throat. "There, there, ma'am," he cried. "Dropit for a time. I have heard enough. You've turned me apoint or two. I won't deny it. But let it stand atthat. I will think it over."

"Certainly, Admiral. We would not hurry you in yourdecision. But we still hope to see you on our platform." She rose and moved about in her lounging masculinefashion from one picture to another, for the walls werethickly covered with reminiscences of the Admiral'svoyages.

"Hullo!" said she. "Surely this ship would havefurled all her lower canvas and reefed her topsails ifshe found herself on a lee shore with the wind on herquarter."

"Of course she would. The artist was never pastGravesend, I swear. It's the Penelope as she was onthe 14th of June, 1857, in the throat of the Straits ofBanca, with the Island of Banca on the starboard bow, andSumatra on the port. He painted it from description, butof course, as you very sensibly say, all was snug belowand she carried storm sails and double-reefed topsails,for it was blowing a cyclone from the sou'east. Icompliment you, ma'am, I do indeed! "

"Oh, I have done a little sailoring myself--as muchas a woman can aspire to, you know. This is the Bay ofFunchal. What a lovely frigate!"

"Lovely, you say! Ah, she was lovely! That is theAndromeda. I was a mate aboard of her--sub-lieutenantthey call it now, though I like the old name best."

"What a lovely rake her masts have, and what a curveto her bows! She must have been a clipper."

The old sailor rubbed his hands and his eyesglistened. His old ships bordered close upon his wifeand his son in his affections.

"I know Funchal," said the lady carelessly. "Acouple of years ago I had a seven-ton cutter-riggedyacht, the Banshee, and we ran over to Madeira fromFalmouth."

"You ma'am, in a seven-tonner?"

"With a couple of Cornish lads for a crew. Oh, itwas glorious! A fortnight right out in the open, with noworries, no letters, no callers, no petty thoughts,nothing but the grand works of God, the tossing sea andthe great silent sky. They talk of riding, indeed, I amfond of horses, too, but what is there to compare withthe swoop of a little craft as she pitches down the longsteep side of a wave, and then the quiver and spring asshe is tossed upwards again? Oh, if our souls couldtransmigrate I'd be a seamew above all birds that fly! But I keep you, Admiral. Adieu!"

The old sailor was too transported with sympathy tosay a word. He could only shake her broad muscular hand. She was half-way down the garden path before she heardhim calling her, and saw his grizzled head andweather-stained face looking out from behind thecurtains.

"You may put me down for the platform," he cried, andvanished abashed behind the I curtain of his Times,where his wife found him at lunch time.

"I hear that you have had quite a long chat with Mrs.Westmacott," said she.

"Yes, and I think that she is one of the mostsensible women that I ever knew.

"Except on the woman's rights question, of course."

"Oh, I don't know. She had a good deal to say forherself on that also. In fact, mother, I have taken aplatfom ticket for her meeting."