S

INTRODUCTION

OME little time ago, while travelling

abroad, I met a remarkably talented

young woman, who at once evinced the greatest friendship for me. She belonged to an aristocratic and very rich family of continental Europe. I immediately discerned that my being a citizen of a Republic was the real and only cause of her marked interest; and some prescience or other straightway caused me to say as little as possible on the subject. As she did the talking I was soon able to find out that she was either a socialist or an anarchist of the most extreme type.

In a few days there arrived on the scene a charming young gentleman of rank and distinction, who, in order to renew his offer of marriage, constantly sought the society of this young personage. When she could, she eluded him; when she could not elude him, she rejected him. Naturally I was deeply interested in the romance; and, being a woman, I just as natural

ly decided to remain and await the dénouement. My curiosity regarding this fascinating member of my sex was so great that I would have risked anything, even the fate of Lot's wife, to unravel the tangle of her thoughts and actions.

She and I soon became almost inseparable companions; and in a short time grew so intimate that she confided to me her secret hopes and fears. She told me that, while she was passionately devoted to her admirer, she would never marry, as she had decided to dedicate her life to the betterment of humanity; that, in her estimation, the only permanent way in which to elevate society was to destroy aristocracies; and that it was with this object in view that she had come so far from home, as it was her only opportunity of meeting other persons who shared her opinions. With them she was going to formulate some plan for the accomplishment of their end. The constant surveillance of her parents would, she said, make it impossible for her to meet her co-workers in the future. Her parents, she explained, were in entire ignorance

of her political theories; and, at home, she would not have any opportunities for doing the work which lay nearest to her heart. As my devotion to her had won her parents' hearty friendship, she had determined to ask them to let her travel with me. She had known from the first, she said, that she would have my entire sympathy in her laudable efforts; for, being a citizen of a republic, I should naturally condemn and detest the tyranny of monarchies, etc., etc.

She would then and there have confided her every thought to me and have made my blood run cold, had I not prevailed on her to drop 'the subject until I had had time to give her suggestions my most serious and dispassionate consideration.

This mistaken altruism upon the part of any member of my sex would have keenly touched my heart, but coming from one for whom I felt such personal attachment, it aroused my greatest apprehension as well. I determined at once to save her from her theories, but I soon discovered the only possible way to do so was to reach the associates who were influencing her.

I therefore urged her to let me address her co-workers at one of their meetings. I swore eternal secrecy as to their identities, should I ever be admitted to their sanctum, and I vowed that if they answered to my satisfaction the questions which I should put to them, I not only would become a life member of their society (and immediately thereafter induce her parents to let her travel about Europe with me), but would further use my Yankee ingenuity to devise some plan for ridding the earth of aristocrats a plan which would be so speedy and effective that all others would pale into insignificance compared with it. (My blushes, as I said this, she mistook for indignation.)

My plan worked so effectually that in the course of a week I was invited to the rooms of one of her co-theorists, where a little coterie of women had assembled. I detected at a glance that several of them were aristocrats-that all evidently were (just what I had expected to find) women of unusual ability, courage and determination; and that "I must make an unsuspected, merciless, and persistent attack upon