And Sally Bishop—­frail, tender-hearted, sensitive Sally Bishop—­has donned the bandolier and the haversack and is off with the rest, just one unit in the rank and file, one slender individual in Nature’s army that is out on a campaign to effect the inevitable change in the social conditions of the sex.  It makes no matter that she will never reap the benefit; it counts not at all that she will never touch the spoil.  The lines must be filled up.  When she falls, there must be others to take her place.  The bugle has sounded in the hearts of thousands of women of her type, and they have had to obey its shrilling call.

Stand for half an hour in the morning at any of the main termini of London’s traffic-ways, and you will see them in their thousands.  They little know the law they are obeying; they little realize the cause for which they are working, or the effect it will produce.  In another book from this pen it has been declared that the words of Maeterlinck—­“the spirit of the hive”—­are an inspired phrase.  Here, in these conditions, with no need to don the protecting gauze, you may see its vivid illustration, as only the great draughtsmanship of life can illustrate the wondrous schemes of Nature.

For two years Sally Bishop had been one amongst them.  For two years she had caught her tram at Kew Bridge in the morning and her tram again at Hammersmith at night.  Only her Sundays and her Saturday afternoons were free, except for those two wonderful weeks in the summer and the yawning gaps in the side of the year which are known as National holidays.

When—­where did the bugle sound that called Sally to her conscription?  What press-gang of circumstances waylaid her, in what peaceful wandering of life, and bore her off to the service of her sex?

There is a little story attached to it—­one of those slight, slender threads of incident that go to form a shadow here or a light there in the broad tapestry of the whole.

The Rev. Samuel Bishop was rector of the parish church in the little town of Cailsham, in Kent.  This was Sally’s father.  There never was a meeker man; there never was a man more truly fitted with those characteristics of piety which are essentially and only Christian.  With charity he was filled, though he had but little to bestow—­his whole intellect was subordinated to his faith—­and with the light of hope his little eyes glittered so long as one straw lay floating on the tide.

This is the man whom Christianity demands, and this the very man whom Christianity crushes like a slug under the heel.  He is bound to be a failure—­bound to hope too much, be blind with faith, and give, out of charity, with the witless hand that knows not where to bestow.

For ten years he had held the parish of Cailsham, fulfilling all his duties by that rule of thumb which is the refuge to all those lacking in initiative.  Not one of the parishioners could find any fault with him, yet none bore him respect.  They blinked through his services.  During his deliberate intoning of the lessons, they thought of all their worldly affairs, and while he preached, they slept.