They are busy, hard-working women, and the enforced leisure is very
trying to them. She spoke with the manager of Tattersall's; he thanked
her for her gifts, remarking, with some weariness in his tone: 'You
don't know, Miss, how hard it is to keep the women amused and
contented--and several of them have been confined!' as if that, too,
were a proof of insubordination.

My husband tells me that the Committee is to hold a meeting at
midnight, and another at six to-morrow morning. He says that Lionel
Phillips nearly fainted from exhaustion to-day. Mr. Phillips is
consistent and brave, and George Farrar, too, is proving himself a
hero. Dear old Colonel, with the kind thoughtfulness so characteristic
of him, never fails to ask how we are bearing the trial.

JANUARY 7.--Sir Jacobus de Wet and Sir Sydney Shippard addressed the
populace from the Band Club balcony, exhorting them to accept the
ultimatum.

LATER.--I have had such a reassuring conversation with Sir Sydney
Shippard this evening. He is a most intelligent man, and speaks with
such fluent decisiveness that all he says carries conviction. I am
told that Sir Jacobus's speech was a rambling, poor affair and weak;
the crowd showed a restlessness that at one time threatened to become
dangerous. He was fortunately pulled down by his coat-tails before the
crowd lost self-control.

Sir Sydney's speech, on the contrary, was strong and full of feeling.
He told the people that he sympathised deeply with them in their
struggle for what he believed to be their just rights, but that being
an English Government official he could take no part. He reminded them