Half an hour later the little cast-iron bell in the steeple of the meeting-house rang. Tom Drake and his wife and John Webb left the farmhouse, and, joining some people from the village, sauntered down the road. Tom was in his shirt-sleeves, for the evening was warm, but Mrs. Drake wore her best black dress with a bright piece of ribbon at the neck, a scarf over her head. Webb carried his coat on his arm and was cooling himself with a palm-leaf fan.

Mostyn was on the lawn watching for Dolly to appear, and was glad that the trio had left her to his care. They were out of sight when Dolly came out of the house, a piece of writing-paper in her hand. Mostyn met her at the gate and opened it for her.

"Well, what luck have you had with your speech?" he asked, as they passed out.

"'What luck,' I say!" She shrugged her shoulders and smiled despondently. "The harder I thought, the fewer ideas seemed to come my way. I give you my word, Mr. Mostyn, I haven't a ghost of an argument. I don't want to vote myself, you see, and I don't see how I am going to make other women want to. Just at present I have so many matters to bother about that I can't throw myself into an imaginary position. I'd break down and cry—I feel exactly like it—if I hadn't been this way before and managed to pull through by the skin of my teeth. You see, standing up before a crowd makes you feel so desperate and hemmed-in-like that you have to fight, and somehow you manage to say something with more or less point to it. If I don't think of something between here and the meeting-house—don't talk, please! I'm awfully nervous. I feel for the world as if I'm going to laugh and cry myself into hysterics. If Warren Wilks were to see me now he'd have the biggest argument for his side he could rake up. If I was running for office and the returns went against me I suppose I'd lie flat down in the road and kick like a spoilt child."

At this moment a buggy containing two women and a man passed. One of the women, a fat motherly creature, glanced back. "Is that you, Dolly?" she asked.

"Yes; how are you, Mrs. Timmons?"

"I'm as well as common, thanky, Dolly. Drive slower, Joe. What's the use o' hurryin'? They can't do a thing till she gits thar; besides, I want to git at the straight o' this business. Say, Dolly, it ain't true, is it, that you intend to stand up for women goin' to the polls?"

Dolly swept Mostyn's expectant face with a startled look and then fixed her eyes on the speaker.

"It is this way, Mrs. Timmons," she began, falteringly. "Warren Wilks suggested the subject, and—"

"That ain't what I axed you," the woman retorted, sharply. "Pull in that hoss, Joe, or I'll git out an' walk the balance o' the way afoot. That ain't what I axed you, Dolly Drake. I want to know now an' here if you are goin' to teach my gals an' other folks' gals a lot o' stuff that was got up by bold-faced Yankee women with no more housework to do, or children to raise, than they have up thar these days. I want to know, I say, for if you are I'll keep my young uns at home. I've always had the highest respect for you, an' I've cheered an' stomped my feet every time you made a speech at the schoolhouse, but if speechmakin' is goin' to make you put on pants an'—"

"Git up!" The driver was whipping his horse. "Don't pay no attention to 'er, Miss Dolly," he called back over his shoulder. "She's been jowerin' ever since she stepped out o' bed this mornin'. If she had a chance to vote she'd stuff the ballot-box with rotten eggs if the 'lection didn't go her way."

"You see that?" Dolly sighed, as the buggy vanished in the gloom. "This fool thing may cost me my job. Warren Wilks ought to be ashamed to get up a joke like this."

"Why don't you throw it over and be done with it?" Mostyn asked, sympathetically.

"Because I'm like the woman you just heard talking," Dolly returned. "I'd rather drop dead in my tracks here in this sand than to have those devilish boys beat me. For the Lord's sake, tell me something to say."

"I'm not daft about voting myself," Mostyn laughed, "and to save my life I can't be enthusiastic about women doing it."

"I wish we could walk through the woods the rest of the way," the girl said. "We'll meet another spitfire in a minute, and then I will lose patience."

They were soon in sight of the four lighted windows of the schoolhouse. "Packed like sardines," Dolly muttered. "Who knows? They may mob me. I don't care—those men pushed this thing on me against my will, and I'm going to fight. Do you know when I'm bothered like this I can actually feel the roots of my hair wiggling as if it were trying to stand up, like the bristles on a pig. The women in this neighborhood have been my best friends till now, and if I can't think of some way to stir up their sympathy I shall be down and out."

Mostyn looked at her admiringly. She was so beautiful, so appealing in her youth and brave helplessness. Being what she already was, what would not opportunity, travel, higher environment bring to her? She was a diamond in the rough. His heart beat wildly. Lucky chance had thrown her in his way. He might win her love, if she did not already care for him. As his wife he could gratify her every desire, and yet—and yet—The situation had its disagreeable side. How could he think of becoming the son-in-law of a man like Tom Drake? What would old Mitchell say? What would his fashionable sister and his entire social set think? Yes, Dolly was all that could be desired, but she was not alone in the world, and she was absolutely true to her family. Mostyn here felt a touch of shame, and shame was a thing he had scarcely been conscious of in his questionable career. That was one of the advantages which had come of his contact with this mountain paragon of womanhood. In his unbounded respect for her he was losing respect for himself. In the presence of her courage he saw himself more and more as the coward that he was. He was beginning to long for her as he had really never longed for any other woman. He wanted to clasp her in his arms and then and there declare his fidelity to her forever.

"Hurry up, we are late!" Dolly warned him, and she quickened her step. They were now among the horses and various kinds of vehicles in front of the meeting-house. A fire of pine-knots near the doorway cast a weird reddish glow over the scene.

"Come right on up to the front with me," Dolly said. "There will be a vacant seat or two near the platform. Say, if you laugh at me while I am speaking—that is, if I do speak—I'll never forgive you—never!"

There was no chance for a reply. She was already leading him into the crowded room. Every bench was full, and men and boys sat even on the sills of the open windows. Seeing Dolly entering, somebody started applause and hands were clapped, whistling and cat-calls rang through the room, no part of which disturbed the girl in the least as she calmly walked ahead of her escort finding seats for them on the front bench.

Eight young men, all neatly dressed, sat in chairs on the platform, and they smiled and bowed to Dolly.

"That's Warren Wilks at my desk," she whispered to Mostyn. "He is grinning clear down the back of his neck. Oh, I'd give anything to get even with him."

Mostyn took the man in with a sweeping glance. He was nice-looking, about twenty-five years of age, tall and slender, and had a clean-shaven intellectual face which was now full of suppressed merriment. He rose with considerable ease and dignity and called the house to order by rapping sharply on Dolly's desk with the brass top of an inkstand. He announced the subject which was to be debated with great gravity, adding with a smile that, of course, it was only through special favor to the only lady member of the club that such a topic had been selected. But—and he smiled down on his amused colleagues—that lady member had lately shown such strong tendencies toward the new-woman movement that, one and all, the members hoped that she might be convinced of the fallacy of her really deplorable position.

"Scamp!" Mostyn heard Dolly exclaim, and, glancing at her profile, he saw a half-smiling expression on her flushed face. "That is the way he always talks," she whispered in the banker's ear. "His great forte is making fun."

Wilks's speech consumed half an hour, during the whole of which Mostyn noticed that Dolly sat as if in restless thought, now and then hastily penciling a few words on a scrap of paper in her hand. At the conclusion of Wilks's speech there was great applause, during which Dolly looked about the room, seeing the hands of all the women as active as the wings of humming-birds hovering over flowers.

"Just look at the silly things!" she sniffed, as she caught Mostyn's eye. "They are voting against me already. They are as changeable as March winds. Look at Mrs. Timmons; she is actually shaking her fist at me. When I speak I always keep my eye on somebody in the crowd. I'll watch that woman to-night, and if I can win her over I may influence some of the rest."