On Sunday afternoon, her wrath had burned itself out, but not its consequences. As she had no intention of making herself ill she was about to lie down and sleep, when her door was opened and she was told that she was free.

This was by no means welcome, for she wished to express herself in court, refuse to pay her fine, and go to gaol, that being the program of the suffragettes. But she was told to depart, and no explanation was given her. Wondering if the duke had been telegraphed to, and brought swift influence to bear, she left the prison with some uneasiness; her old-fashioned relative was her one source of apprehension. If disapproval overcame his sense of justice and he cut down her income, she should have that much less to devote to the Suffrage cause.

At the inn she found that Mrs. Lime, who had escaped arrest, was out, and ordered the maid to bring her bath. When she had finished, the maid returned with her tea, and stood by sympathetically.

“So you’ve been to prison?” she asked.

“I have,” said Julia.

“That’s no place for you, mum. Wot’s the perlice thinking of, giving you wot for like that?”

“Do you belong to this town?”

“I do, mum.”

“Then, let me tell you, it is a disgrace to a civilized country.”

“Oh, I say!”

Julia, who wanted to talk to somebody, gave an account of her adventure with the mob, and while omitting their language, let it be understood in her descriptions of their appearance and performance.

The woman nodded emphatically. “Right you are. It’s them factory girls. They’re no good. Trollops, all of ’em. W’y, d’you know, I worked in one of them factories for seven years, and I was the only girl in the lot that kep’ me virtue.” (She looked like a black-and-tan terrier and was not much larger.) “That I did, though!” And she nodded her head as if keeping time to a hymn.

Julia, who had finished her tea, stood up and began to unpin her hair as a hint that she would like to be alone. But the woman set down the tray and exclaimed in a voice of rapture:?—

“Oh, my eye, wot hair! Oh, but I’ve always admired golden ’air, me own’s that black.”

“It’s very disreputable hair at present,” said Julia, amiably. “It hasn’t been down since yesterday morning. Naturally I couldn’t use the prison comb—if there was one!”

“Oh—would you—would you let me brush it, now?” cried the woman, eagerly. “I’ve never ’ad me ’ands in ’air like that. I’d enjoy it, that I would.”

“Why—if you like.” Julia, who was tired, felt that it would not be unpleasant to have the services of a maid once more.

She sat down and the woman began to unbraid the long plaits.

“Are you sure you have the time?” asked Julia, perfunctorily.

“Oh, yes. Me ’usband’s ’ead waiter, and the master would give up the ’otel before ’im; and he—Jim—-don’t dare say nothing to me, for fear I’d caterwaul. I can do that awful. Oh, my eye, but this is ’air!”

She shook out the long strands and held one up to the light. “Oh, Gawd!” she cried, with mounting fervor. “No wonder them trollops wanted to mar you. They were jealous, that’s wot. They’d ’ave cut it off if the perlice ’adn’t come along, and pinned it on their own ’eads. And beauties they’d ’ave been!”

“Do you suppose they were drunk?”

“?’Alf and ’alf. It wasn’t time to be full up, but you oughter see them in the market-place at ten o’clock!”

“What makes them so brutal, then? I’ve never seen anything like them in England.”

“Oh, I fawncy they’re about the worst England’s got. Maybe it’s the cigarette factories does it, I cawn’t say. But they’re a rotten lot, and all me sisters was the same. I ’ad a blond sister, but her hair was more whitish, not gold like yours. She was pretty and more gentle-like, but she went to the bad fast enough. I swore I’d keep me virtue an’ I did. I never spoke to a man I wasn’t introduced to proper until the night I met Jim in the merry-go-round—in the same seat, he was, and he made up to me—fell that in love he couldn’t see straight, and when he tried ’is nonsense, he got wot for and then he respected me from that day forth—I’ve read me penny dreadfuls, you see. Well, we got married proper, and now we ’ave two good positions, and may own a public some day. It pays to be virtuous, it do. He isn’t the only sweetheart I ever ’ad, either,” she rambled on; and Julia, seeing that nothing would quench her, resigned herself, for the woman’s touch was deft and light. “I ’ad a fine ’andsome sweetheart once—Jim ain’t nothing to look at, and would drink if I didn’t caterwaul so—’andsome and upstanding he was, and all the girls was after him; and he was steady, too, had one job and kep’ it. He was in a big Manchester draper’s shop. He used to come ’ere, and I used to visit me aunt—he was me cousin and ’is name was Harry Muggs. He was in love wit............