“Your mother isn’t able to attend to any business.”
“She isn’t able to put it off, daddie dear.”
“Very well; I’ll see about it.”
“But I want the blank form now, so I can have it all ready when we go through town. Mother has the original deed, and I can easily duplicate it. I’ll search for a blank among your papers, if you don’t object.”
“You have no idea how this little act of justice will help mother to regain her health,” said Mary. “She’s been haunted by a fear that you’d put it off till it would be too late.”
Captain Ranger did not reply; but his silence was considered as consent, and Jean hurried away to prepare the deed.
“I’ve been dreaming about an island somewhere in mid-ocean,” said Marjorie, “where women could hold their own earnings, just as men do in the United States; where they had full liberty to help the men to make the laws, for which they paid their full quota of taxes, just as the women do in Missouri and Illinois and, for aught I know, in Oregon.”
“I’ve paid the taxes on that ten-acre farm for a dozen years,” said her father.
“Yes, out of mother’s income from it,” retorted Marjorie. “It has always been rented, you know.”