nonsense."

"Is she as beautiful as the newspapers say she is?"

"I don't know, she has a kind of beauty--she is not like--'

"Not like Alice?"

"Well, she is brilliant; she was called the handsomest woman in
Washington--dashing, you know, and sarcastic and witty. Ruth, do you
believe a woman ever becomes a devil?"

"Men do, and I don't know why women shouldn't. But I never saw one."

"Well, Laura Hawkins comes very near it. But it is dreadful to think of
her fate."

"Why, do you suppose they will hang a woman? Do you suppose they will be
so barbarous as that?"

"I wasn't thinking of that--it's doubtful if a New York jury would find a
woman guilty of any such crime. But to think of her life if she is
acquitted."

"It is dreadful," said Ruth, thoughtfully, "but the worst of it is that
you men do not want women educated to do anything, to be able to earn an
honest living by their own exertions. They are educated as if they were
always to be petted and supported, and there was never to be any such
thing as misfortune. I suppose, now, that you would all choose to have
me stay idly at home, and give up my profession."