The unhappy girl committed suicide
on discovering the fraud to which she had been subjected.
When the news of this catastrophe spread from State to State
the minds of the Women were violently agitated. Sympathy with
the miserable victim and anticipations of similar deceptions
for themselves, their sisters, and their daughters, made them
now regard the Colour Bill in an entirely new aspect.
Not a few openly avowed themselves converted to antagonism;
the rest needed only a slight stimulus to make a similar avowal.
Seizing this favourable opportunity, the Circles hastily convened
an extraordinary Assembly of the States; and besides the usual
guard of Convicts, they secured the attendance of a large number
of reactionary Women.
Amidst an unprecedented concourse, the Chief Circle of those days
-- by name Pantocyclus -- arose to find himself hissed and hooted
by a hundred and twenty thousand Isosceles. But he secured silence
by declaring that henceforth the Circles would enter on a policy
of Concession; yielding to the wishes of the majority,
they would accept the Colour Bill. The uproar being at once converted
to applause, he invited Chromatistes, the leader of the Sedition,
into the centre of the hall, to receive in the name of his followers
the submission of the Hierarchy.
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