adhesion to our programme all the easier."

"I was only speaking of the police of mentioning things which might
alarm timid people. Then as for the priests; it may be the interest of
the priests in Ireland to keep the peasantry ignorant; but it is
certainly not so in England. The Church of England fosters education--"

"Are not your clergymen the bitterest enemies of the School Board
schools?"

"Well, they may dislike seeing education dissociated from religion--that
is natural, considering what they believe; but they are not necessary
enemies of education. Perhaps I am a very young member to think of
making such a suggestion. But the truth is, that when an ordinary
Englishman hears anything said against kings and priests, he merely
thinks of kings and priests as he knows them--and as being mostly
harmless creatures nowadays--and concludes that you are a Communist
wanting to overturn society altogether."

"Precisely so. I told Natalie this morning that if she were to be
allowed to join our association her English friends would imagine her to
be _petroleuse_."

"Miss Lind is not in the association?" Brand said, quickly.

"As yet no women have been admitted. It is a difficulty; for in some
societies with which we are partly in alliance women are members. Ah,
such noble creatures many of them are, too! However, the question may
come forward by-and-by. In the mean time, Natalie, without being made
aware of what we are actually doing--that, of course, is