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THE COMET AND THE FIXED STAR.
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deal of feeling and dispute between the various branches. I have two delegates stopping with me, and they haven’t spoken to each other since yesterday morning, nor sat down to eat at the same table. I shall do all I can, as the presiding officer, to keep things pleasant at the meetings, but it will be difficult. You’ve never been in public life and can’t understand it, but you see there are women among the delegates who’ve suffered the tyranny of man so long that they will cook anything their husbands demand; women who believe in eating any kind of food, and hold that the principal trouble lies in bad cooking; women who will give up meat, but still indulge in all sorts of cakes, pastries, and kickshaws; and women who are strong on temperance in drink, but who see no need of temperance in food. The whole question of diet reform is in an awful state, and a Congress is the only way to settle it."

"How do men stand on the diet question?" asked Mary, with a twinkle in her eye.

"They don’t stand at all," answered Mrs. Grubb promptly. "They sit right still, and some of them lie down flat, you might say,