'Exactly. He refuses. But he also asks questions. He is amazed. He is against the franchise for women. "You'll never get the vote!" "Well, we must have something," says Ernestine. "I'm sure it isn't against your principles to lend a woman a chair." She lays hands on one. "I never said you could have one of my——" "But you meant to, didn't you? Isn't a chair one of the things men have always been ready to offer us? Thank you. I'll take good care of it and bring it back quite safe." Out marches Ernestine with the enemy's property. She carries the chair into the road and plants it in front of the Fire Station. Usually there are two or three "helpers." Sometimes Ernestine, if you please, carries the meeting entirely on her own shoulders—those same shoulders being about so wide. Yes, she's quite a little thing. If there are helpers she sends them up and down the street sowing a fresh crop of handbills. When Ernestine is ready to begin she stands up on that chair, in the open street and, as if she were doing the most natural thing in the world, she begins ringing that dinner bell. Naturally people stop and stare and draw nearer. Ernestine tells me that Battersea has got so used now to the ding-dong and to associating it with "our meeting," that as far off as they hear it the inhabitants say, "It's the Suffragettes! Come along!" and from one street and another the people emerge laughing and running. Of course as soon as there is a little crowd that attracts more, and so the snowball grows. Sometimes the traffic is impeded. Oh, it's a much odder world than I had suspected!' For a moment laughter interrupted the narrative. '"The Salvation Army doesn't quite approve of us," Ernestine says, "and the Socialists don't love us either! We always take their audiences away from them—poor things," says Ernestine, with a sympathetic air. "You do!" I say, because'—Vida nodded at Lord Borrodaile—'you must know Ernestine is a beguiler.'

'Oh, a beguiler. I didn't suppose——'

'No, it's against the tradition, I know, but it's true. She herself, however, doesn't seem to realize her beguilingness. "It isn't any one in particular they come to hear," she says, "it's just that a woman making a speech is so much more interesting than a man making a speech." It surprises you? So it did me.'

'Nothing surprises me!' said Borrodaile, with a wave of his long hands.

'Last night she was wonderful, our Ernestine! Even I, who am used to her, I was stirred. I was even thrilled. She had that crowd in the hollow of her hand! When she wound up, "The motion is carried. The meeting is over!" and climbed down off her perch, the mob cheered and pressed round her so close that I had to give up trying to join her. I extricated myself and crossed the street. She is so little that, unless she's on a chair, she is swallowed up. For a long time I couldn't see her. I didn't know whether she was taking the names and addresses of the people who want to join the Union, or whether she had slipped away and gone home, till I saw practically the whole crowd moving off after her up the street. I followed for some distance on the off-side. She went calmly on her way, a tiny figure in a long grey coat between two helpers, the Lancashire cotton-spinner and the Cockney working woman, with that immense tail of boys and men (and a few women) all following after—quite quiet and well-behaved—just following, because it didn't occur to them to do anything else. In a way she was still exercising her hold over her meeting. I saw, presently, there was one person in front of her—a great big fellow—he looked like a carter—he was carrying home the chair!'

They both laughed.

'Well, she's found a thick-and-thin advocate in you apparently,' said Borrodaile.

'Ah! if only you could see her! trudging along, apparently quite oblivious of her quaint following, dinner bell in one hand, leather case piled high with "tracts" on the other arm, some of the leaflets sliding off, tumbling on to the pavement.' Vida laughed as she recalled the scene. 'Then dozens of hands darting out to help her to recover her precious property! After the chair had been returned the crowd thinned, and I crossed over to her.'

'You in that mêlée!' Borrodaile ejaculated. 'Well, Ernestine hadn't the quaintness all to herself.'

'No. Oh, no,' Vida agreed. 'I thought of you, and how you'd look if you had come on us suddenly. After the crowd had melted and the helpers had vanished into the night, we went on together—all the way, from the Battersea Fire Station to Sloane Square, did Ernestine and I walk, talking reform last night. You laugh? So do I; but not at Ernestine. She's a most wonderful person. I sometimes ask myself if the world will ever know half how wonderful. You, for instance, you haven't, after all I've said, you haven't an idea!'