"That's just it," Herminia answered, leaning back on the rustic

seat like David's Madame Recamier. "You put your finger on the

real blot when you said those words, developing equally every fibre

of your natures. That's what nobody yet wants us women to do.

They're trying hard enough to develop us intellectually; but

morally and socially they want to mew us up just as close as ever.

And they won't succeed. The zenana must go. Sooner or later, I'm

sure, if you begin by educating women, you must end by emancipating

them."

"So I think too," Alan answered, growing every moment more

interested. "And for my part, it's the emancipation, not the mere

education, that most appeals to me."

"Yes, I've always felt that," Herminia went on, letting herself out

more freely, for she felt she was face to face with a sympathetic

listener. "And for that reason, it's the question of social and

moral emancipation that interests me far more than the mere

political one,--woman's rights as they call it. Of course I'm a

member of all the woman's franchise leagues and everything of that

sort,--they can't afford to do without a single friend's name on

their lists at present; but the vote is a matter that troubles me

little in itself, what I want is to see women made fit to use it.

After all, political life fills but a small and unimportant part in

our total existence. It's the perpetual pressure of social and

ethical restrictions that most weighs down women."

Alan paused and looked hard at her. "And they tell me," he said in

a slow voice, "you're the Dean of Dunwich's daughter!"

Herminia laughed lightly,--a ringing girlish laugh. Alan noticed

it with pleasure. He felt at once that the iron of Girton had not

entered into her soul, as into so many of our modern young women's.

There was vitality enough left in her for a genuine laugh of

innocent amusement. "Oh yes," she said, merrily; "that's what I

always answer to all possible objectors to my ways and ideas. I

reply with dignity, '_I_ was brought up in the family of a

clergyman of the Church of England.'"

"And what does the Dean say to your views?" Alan interposed

doubtfully.

Herminia laughed again. If her eyes were profound, two dimples

saved her. "I thought you were with us," she answered with a

twinkle; "now, I begin to doubt it. You don't expect a man of

twenty-two to be governed in all things, especially in the

formation of his abstract ideas, by his father's opinions. Why

then a woman?"




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