Gertie, "but I shan't accept the invitation." 

 "I'd see that she was civil to you." 

 "And I shall see," said the girl obstinately, "that she doesn't get many chances of being anything else. I'd no idea you had swell relatives; otherwise I'd never have gone on with it." 

 He went back disappointedly, and Mr. Trew, making his escape with every sign of relief, told Gertie that, with what he might term a vast and considerable experience of womankind (including one specimen who, in May of '99, gave him advice on the task of driving horses through London streets), this particular one was, he declared, the limit. He described himself as feeling bruised, black and blue, all over. Without wishing to interfere in matters which did not concern him, he ventured to suggest that Gertie might possibly be fortunate in her young man, but she could scarcely claim to be called lucky in her young man's relations. 

 "I'm going to chuck it," she replied desperately.  "Chuck it altogether. You were correct in what you said, that Sunday night, about distances, and I was wrong." 

 Mr. Trew, flustered by this instant agreement, began to hedge. He did not pretend, he said, to be always right; he could recollect many occasions when he had been considerably wide of the mark. In fact, a bigger blunderhead, excepting in regard to certain matters, of which this was not one, probably did not exist. Trew begged to point out that the middle-aged party walking along behind them was, after all, only one middle-aged party, and there was no reason to assume that she could knock out every opponent she encountered. At the finish of his argument, Trew urged his young companion to put on the gloves, and show what she could do. 

 "Think I had better not," she said, less definitely.  "I shan't like feeling myself beaten, but it's wiser to do that now than to leave it till later." 

 Mr. Trew became reproachful, almost sarcastic. This, then, was the stuff that his little friend, niece of his old friend, was made of, was it? Crumpling up at the first signs of opposition; stepping out of the ring directly her opponent held up fists! If Gertie represented the young woman of to-day, give Mr. Trew the young woman of thirty years ago. He had changed his mind recently on an important subject—a thing he rarely did—and half decided to extend the power of voting to the other sex, but the present case induced him to believe first thoughts were best. 

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