"Three or four."
"Oh, how funny," Ethel laughed. And then she reddened. "You little goose," she exclaimed to herself, "why did you say, 'how funny'?" She poured the tea with a trembling hand and proffered it with a plate of cakes and small toasted crumpets, dainties she had purchased with care at a smart little shop in the neighbourhood. And meanwhile she was answering the questions, pleasant but searching, though thrown out in a casual voice.
"Yes, my home was in Ohio. Such a dear old town," she said. But the next moment she bit her lips, for she had come so near to adding, "I wish I were back this very minute!" What was her visitor saying? She frowned and leaned forward attentively. Something about a small town in Vermont and the funny local politics there. "Where is she leading by that remark?" Oh, yes, suffrage! That was all right!
"Yes, indeed," declared Ethel eagerly, "I'm for suffrage heart and soul! I marched in the parade last Fall! Wasn't it glorious? Were you there?"
"Yes, I marched—"
"With the gardeners?" Ethel blushed again. "Landscape, I mean!" And her visitor smiled.
"Yes, with the gardeners," she said. "There were only four of us, but we felt like the Four Hundred." Ethel giggled excitedly.
"Wasn't it glorious?" she exclaimed. "You ninny!" she thought. "You said that once!" And she hastened to add, "And isn't it perfectly silly for men to try to keep us from marching?"
"You mean your husband doesn't approve?"
"Approve!" Ethel echoed with a sniff. "I'd like to see him disapprove. I have him in fair control, I think." And she knitted her brows in an eager way, for this was a chance to tell how she had done it.