Girls
feel it in the air. They all fret and worry, or most of them do, until
they are allowed to measure their strength and test the commercial worth
of what they have acquired. You are a dear old fossil, Jack. Just look
at it in this way: Suppose Mrs. Vanderhoven, brought up in the purple,
taught to play a little, to embroider a little, to speak a little
French--to do a little of many things and nothing well--had been given
the sort of education that in her day was the right of every gentleman's
son, though denied the gentleman's daughter, would her life be so hard
and narrow and distressful now? Would she be reduced to taking in fine
washing and hemstitching, and canning fruit?"
"Canning fruit, mother dear," said Miriam, who had just come in to
procure fresh towels for the bedrooms, "is a fine occupation. Several
women in the United States are making their fortunes at that. Eva and I,
who haven't Grace's talents, are thinking of taking it up in earnest. I
can make preserves, I rejoice to say."
"When you are ready to begin, you shall have my blessing," said her
father. "I yield to the new order of things." Then as the pretty elder
daughter disappeared, a sheaf of white lavender-perfumed towels over her
arm, he said: "Now, dear, I perceive your point. Archie Vanderhoven's
accident has, however, occurred in the very best possible time for
Grace. The King's Daughters--you know what a breezy Ten they are, with
our Eva and the Raeburns' Amy among them--are going to give a lift to
Archie, not to his mother, who might take offence.
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