The lady thus appealed to flung away her cigarette and, lying back in her chair so that the glow of the lamp was behind her head, opened a small manuscript.
“I ought to say,” she began, “that I wrote this originally as an address to a meeting of Primrose Dames. You know the kind of thing—the local mayoress, the wives of rising tradespeople, and a sprinkling of the female clergy. But Henry Parworth, who read it, said that it would break up the Primrose League altogether, so I had to give them a chapter of ‘Sibyl’ instead.” She adjusted her head and began to read in slow, clear accents:—
“Where shall we discover the path of the Statesman?” asked the Stranger in the ‘Politicus,’ and the question has often returned to pull up the hasty politician. We hear much about administrative reform, th
