“Who knows?” echoed Selma, with her spiritual look.  “Yes, you are right, Mrs. Taylor.  I will help you.  As you say, there must be hundreds of young men who would like to do just that sort of thing.  I know myself what it is to have lived in a small place without the opportunity to show what one could do; to feel the capacity, but to be without the means and occasion to reveal what is in one.  And now that I understand we really look at things the same way, I’m glad to join with you in making Benham beautiful.  As you say, we women can do much if we only will.  I’ve the greatest faith in woman’s mission in this new, interesting nation of ours.  Haven’t you, Mrs. Taylor?  Don’t you believe that she, in her new sphere of usefulness, is one of the great moving forces of the Republic?” Selma was talking rapidly, and had lost every trace of suspicious restraint.  She spoke as one transfigured.

“Yes, indeed,” answered Mrs. Taylor, checking any disposition she may have felt to interpose qualifications.  She could acquiesce generally without violence to her convictions, and she could not afford to imperil the safety of the immediate issue—­her church.  “I felt sure you would feel so if you only had time to reflect,” she added.  “If you vote with us, you will have the pleasant consciousness of knowing that you have advanced woman’s cause just so much.”

“You may count on my vote.”

Selma stopped on her way home, although it was late, to purchase some white cuffs.  As she approached, her husband stood on the grass-plot in his shirt sleeves with a garden-hose.  He was whistling, and when he saw her he kissed his hand at her jubilantly,

“Well, sweetheart, where you been?”

“Visiting.  Taking tea with Mrs. Taylor.  I’ve promised her to vote to invite bids for the church plans.”

Babcock looked surprised.  “That’ll throw Pierce out, won’t it?”

“Not unless some one else submits a better design than he.”

Lewis scratched his head.  “I considered that order for varnish as good as booked.”

“I’m not sure Mr. Pierce knows as much as he thinks he does,” said Selma oracularly.  “We shall get plans from New York and Boston.  If we don’t like them we needn’t take them.  But that’s the way to get an artistic thing.  And we’re going to have the most artistic church in Benham.  I’m sorry about the varnish, but a principle is involved.”

Babcock was puzzled but content.  He cared far more for the disappointment to Pierce than for the loss of the order.  But apart from the business side of the question, he never doubted that his wife must be right, nor did he feel obliged to inquire what principle was involved.  He was pleased to have her associate with Mrs. Taylor, and was satisfied that she would be a credit to him in any situation where occult questions of art or learning were mooted.  He dropped his hose and pulled her down beside him on the porch settee.  There was a beautiful sunset, and the atmosphere was soft and refreshing.  Selma felt satisfied with herself.  As Mrs. Taylor had said, it was her vote which would turn the scale on behalf of progress.  Other things, too, were in her mind.  She was not ready to admit that she had been instructed, but she was already planning changes in her own domestic interior, suggested by what she had seen.