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is pretty.”
    “Very.” I took her arm and slowed my steps to hers. “And we have a lovely evening for a  leisurely stroll. Since we are closer to my house, I suggest we head there first. I will have my sister’s coachman drive you home from there.”
    As we walked, I was surprised and, I confess, dismayed to find that the woman I thought so frail and gentle had a spirit that more than matched my own.
    “But surely you must agree that the public will never take us seriously unless we make them do so,” she demanded after ten minutes of debate.
    I was silent a moment, considering how best to calm her impassioned and rather bloodthirsty heart while not dampening her spirit for the cause. “I can’t say I agree with you, Helena. I understand the reasoning behind Maggie Greene’s desire to advance the Union to a more militant stand, but the thought of using violence to further our cause is abhorrent to me. I don’t believe it is needed.”
    “But consider the past twenty years! If, according to the pamphlet you gave me, women have been trying by constitutional means to get the vote and failing, then the time has come to make the public aware of our cause. What better way can we prove that we are serious?”
    I opened my mouth to argue the point, but all that came out was a loud “Ooof!”
    A sharp blow to the middle of my back sent me sprawling into a nearby lamppost. I slumped against it, dazed and stunned. Shaking my head to clear it, I attempted to stand up. On the third try I was successful, and looked around for my attacker.
    “Next time ye’ll think twice afore ye go meddlin’ in matters that don’t concern ye,” a thick voice growled from the shadows of the building. A dark shape moved in the shadows, clearly retreating down a darkened alley. I rubbed my head and limped over to the street.
    Helena had been dumped unceremoniously about thirty feet away, directly into a large mound of horse droppings. “Cassandra, I can’t…and it’s all over…it’s oozing on my leg!” she wailed as she tried to get up.
    I helped her to her feet and surveyed the result. Her lovely pink coat now covered in muck.
    “What am I going to do?” Helena held her arms out stiffly, and promptly burst into tears.
    “Are you hurt?” I asked, looking for signs of injury.
    She shook her head.
    “Thank heavens for that. Take off your coat, let me give you my handkerchief. You are certainly a mess. Damnation! My bag has been stolen.”
     She shivered in her thin gown.
    “Here.” I removed my own coat and handed it to her. “Wrap this around you. You’ll have to have your coat cleaned before you can wear it again.”
    She protested, but I was in no mood to argue with her. I buttoned her into my coat and picked up her soiled garment with two fingers.
    “This is covered in filth. Luckily, it’s long enough to prevent most of your skirt from coming in contact with the refuse.” I set the coat down again and considered our situation. “We are less than a mile from my home, further from yours. I suppose we could go back to Mrs. Knox’s and beg for assistance.”
    “No!” Helena wailed. “I could not face that, I could not!”
    “Then we shan’t go there,” I said soothingly, knowing full well that she would not be able to stand up to ridicule, however politely spoken. I looked at her critically. “Oh, dear, you are a mess.”
    Muck was smeared up to the ankles of her lovely boots, her hemline was soiled, and her face was tearstained and grubby. Her chin quivered ominously, and her eyes shined with tears on the verge of falling again. Clearly, I could not leave her to her own devices. I gave a mental shrug and looked around for a cab. “Do you still have your bag, Helena?”
    She nodded.
    “Do you have any money?”
    “A little. Not much, though.”  Tears began to course down her cheeks again as she peered forlornly into her bag. She handed me a few coins.
    A hansom cab loitered far down the street at an