favorite of Abraham Lincoln.  It was this piece which came into her mind when Mrs. Earle broached the subject, and this she proceeded to deliver with august precision.  She spoke clearly and solemnly without the trace of the giggling protestation which is so often incident to feminine diffidence.  She treated the opportunity with the seriousness expected, for though the Institute was not proof against light and diverting contributions, as the whistling performance indicated, levity of spirit would have been out of place.

     “’Tis a twink of the eye, ’tis a draught of the breath
     From the blossom of health to the paleness of death;
     From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,
     O why should the spirit of mortal be proud?”

Selma enjoyed the harmony between the long, slow cadence of the metre and the important gravity of the theme.  She rolled out the verses with the intensity of a seer, and she looked a beautiful seer as well.  Liberal applause greeted her as she sat down, though the clapping woman is apt to be a feeble instrument at best.  Selma knew that she had produced an impression and she was moved by her own effectiveness.  She was compelled to swallow once or twice to conceal the tears in her voice while listening to the congratulations of Mrs. Earle.  The words which she had just recited were ringing through her brain and seemed to her to express the pitch at which her life was keyed.

Selma was chosen a member of the Institute at the next meeting, and forthwith she became intimate with the president.  Mrs. Margaret Rodney Earle was, as she herself phrased it, a live woman.  She supported herself by writing for the newspapers articles of a morally utilitarian character—­for instance a winter’s series, published every Saturday, “Hints on Health and Culture,” or again, “Receipts for the Parlor and the Kitchen.”  She also contributed poetry of a pensive cast, and chatty special correspondence flavored with personal allusion.  She was one of the pioneers in modern society journalism, which at this time, however, was comparatively veiled and delicate in its methods.  Besides, she was a woman of tireless energy, with theories on many subjects and an ardor for organization.  She advocated prohibition, the free suffrage of woman, the renunciation of corsets, and was interested in reforms relating to labor, the pauper classes and the public schools.  In behalf of any of these causes she was ready from time to time to dash off an article at short notice or address an audience.  But her dearest concern was the promotion of woman’s culture and the enlargement of woman’s sphere of usefulness through the club.  The idea of the woman’s club, which was taking root over the country, had put in the shade for the time being all her other plans, including the scheme of a society for making the golden-rod the national flower.  As the founder and president of the Benham Institute, she felt that she had found an avocation peculiarly adapted to her capacities, and she was already actively in correspondence with clubs of a similar character in other cities, in the hope of forming a national organization for mutual enlightenment and support.