Xena's disappearance had been the first reason for Eva's sickeningly good mood to be ruined. She could not possibly gush about her Frederick when one of her dearest friends was missing! Miss Xena was a smart, sensible woman - obviously she'd not eloped! Which left one option; she'd been kidnapped, and she was probably being tortured in someone's dark dungeon as we speak! Oh, it was horrible, truly horrible!

Eva would have wrote her family in support, but she was sadly not very acquianted with the other Fisks. She'd met Xena's mother on several occasions when the woman had still been alive, when she'd chaperoned Xena to some place the girls happened to meet. Remembering about the late Mrs. Fisk had only made Eva sadder. It'd be terrible for them to lose Xena, as well as Mrs. Fisk!

"I'm so distraught!" Eva said somewhat dramatically, though her tone was not intentional. She was just dramatic by nature. "She's a dear friend of mine, you know! We used to do our Charms work together! Oh, my mind wanders to the worst possibilities! It is terrible!" 

How could Cordelia ask such a thing? Granted, the tone of her voice had hardly been accusatory or gossipy, but Eva was still displeased that someone might even think that Xena had disappeared with a beau. Her friend would never do that! So what if she was a bit old and middle class? She had a sensible head on her shoulders, she wouldn't risk ruining herself to pull a Lydia Bennet!

"Of course not!" Eva said, perhaps a tad more agressively than she intended. More softly, she added: "Miss Fisk was never that kind of girl. It angers me that there are people who do think that, though! Shame on them - the girl has obviously been kidnapped, and they accuse her of being a hussy!"

Well, it was nice that Cordelia wasn't accusing Xena of being a hussy. Eva was too distressed, so not in a mood to really fight. Besides. She liked Cordelia. She didn't want to fight with her.

"Has there actually been any progress from the middle ages, though?" Eva commented. As far as she was concerned, things were pretty much the same. "Well, I suppose it's some progress that we don't lose fingers or get dipped in icy rivers for being too talkative."

Although Eva agreed with many of the points those so called Suffragettes raised, she refrained from being vocal about it. She really was no rebel by nature. She'd happily help a cause if it was close to victory, but not before that.

Miss Burke, however, seemed to share her opinions on such views, so Eva supposed it'd be safe to voice her agreement.

"Especially since we've had female leaders." Both in the muggle and magical world. The muggles had a Queen, and the wizards had had women like Josephina Flint and Evangeline Orpington. If they could trust women to lead, they could trust them to pick their leaders as well.

"Of course," Eva agreed. "It is only the way of socialists, I feel, to go to extremes for the sake of a cause." All they managed to accomplish was hurt people and make fools of themselves. Women would never gain rights if they sought them violently.