don’t like the kind of woman that is always grabbing a trick if some one plays out of the wrong hand.”

He said something of the kind to Millicent, obtaining but scant sympathy in that quarter.

[55]“She’s deep, Bertie; I told you that,” was the only reply, “but I’m watching. I have reason for my feeling.”

[55]

“Maybe you have been misinformed,” ventured her brother-in-law with proper meekness.

“Not at all,” retorted she sharply. “I happen to know that she worked against me with the Daughters.”

“Daughters,” the colonel repeated inanely, “your daughters?”

“Certainly not! The Daughters of the Revolution.”

“It’s a mighty fine society, that; did a lot during the Spanish War. And you are the state president, aren’t you?”

“No, Rupert,” returned Mrs. Melville with dignity, “I am no longer state regent. By methods that would shame the most hardened men politicians I was defeated; why! didn’t you read about it?”

“You know I only came back from the Philippines in February.”

“It was in all the Chicago papers. I was interviewed myself. I assure you the other candidates (there were two) tried the very lowest political methods. Melville said it was scandalous.[56] There were at least three luncheons given against me. It wasn’t the congress, it was the lobby defeated me. And their methods! I would not believe that gentlewoman could stoop to such infamy of misrepresentation.” The colonel chewed his mustache; he felt for that reporter of the Chicago paper; he was evidently getting a phonographic record now; he made an inarticulate rumble of sympathy in his throat which was as the clucking of the driver to the mettled horse. Mrs. Melville gesticulated with Delsartian grace, as she poured forth her woes.

[56]

“They accused me of a domineering spirit; they said I was trying to set up a machine. I! I worked for them, many a time, half the night, at my desk; never was a letter unanswered; I did half the work of the corresponding secretary; yet at the crucial moment she betrayed me! I learned more in those two days of the petty jealousy, the pitiless malevolence of some women than I had known all my 

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