Ellen had not folded back her first page with a flutter of the white satin ribbons before people began to sit straight and stare at each other incredulously.

The subject of the valedictory, as well as those of the other essays, had been allotted, and Ellen's had been "Equality," and she had written a most revolutionary valedictory.

Ellen had written with a sort of poetic fire, and, crude as it all was, she might have had the inspiration of a Shelley or a Chatterton as she stood there, raising her fearless young front over the marshalling of her sentiments on the smooth sheets of foolscap.

Her voice, once started, rang out clear and full.

She had hesitated at nothing, she flung all castes into a common heap of equality with her strong young arms, and she set them all on one level of the synagogue.