Frothingham again!" And she laughed. "I
haven't told him about you!"
I answered, needless to say, that I hoped she would keep the secret!
24. All this time I was busy with my child-labour work. We had an
important bill before the legislature that session, and I was doing
what I could to work up sentiment for it. I talked at every
gathering where I could get a hearing; I wrote letters to
newspapers; I sent literature to lists of names. I racked my mind
for new schemes, and naturally, at such times, I could not help
thinking of Sylvia. How much she could do, if only she would!
I spared no one, least of all myself, and so it was not easy to
spare her. The fact that I had met her was the gossip of the office,
and everybody was waiting for something to happen. "How about Mrs.
van Tuiver?" my "chief" would ask, at intervals. "If she would
_only_ go on our press committee" my stenographer would sigh.
The time came when our bill was in committee, a place of peril for
bills. I went to Albany to see what could be done. I met half a
hundred legislators, of whom perhaps half-a-dozen had some human
interest in my subject; the rest, well, it was discouraging.
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