experience of organisation, has very kindly agreed, subject of course
to the approval of the committee, to step temporarily into the breach.
She will be an honorary worker, like all of us here, and I am sure
that the committee will feel as grateful to her as I do."

As there had been smiles at the turn of his phrase about Miss Trewas,
so now there were fervent, almost emotional, "Hear-hears."

"Mrs. Smith, will you please read the minutes of the last meeting."

Concepcion was sitting at his left hand. He kept thinking, "I'm one of
those who get things done." Two hours ago, and the idea of enlisting
her had not even occurred to him, and already he had taken her out
of her burrow, brought her to the offices, coached her in the
preliminaries of her allotted task, and introduced several important
members of the committee to her! It was an achievement.

Never had the minutes been listened to with such attention as they
obtained that day. Concepcion was apparently not in the least nervous,
and she read very well--far better than the deserter Miss Trewas, who
could not open her mouth without bridling. Concepcion held the room.
Those who had not seen before the celebrated Concepcion Iquist now saw
her and sated their eyes upon her. She had been less a woman than a
legend. The romance of South America enveloped her, and the romance of
her famous and notorious uncle, of her triumph over the West End, her
startling marriage and swift widowing, her journey to America and her
complete disappearance, her attachment to Lady Queenie, and now her
dramatic reappearance.

And the sharp condiment to all this was the general knowledge of the