"Yes, yes," I said; "what can save me from coming out?"
"Marry some good man," he said, "and spend your energies making a quiet, happy home for him."
He was looking at me in a very peculiar way, and I felt frightened, I don't know why, and skipped along the balcony back to grandmother's sitting-room.
When I entered who should be there talking to grandmother but Mrs. Paton. She said she had felt lonesome without grandmother in the city, and had made up her mind to spend a week at the seaside.
"Oh, grandmother!" I cried, as soon as I had greeted Mrs. Paton, "shall I have to come out? Cannot I always stay in?"
Grandmother clasped my hand in hers, in the old way she had of quieting me, and explained to Mrs. Paton that I did not incline to the ways of society people, and had a dread of entering the world which Aunt Gwendolin loved so well.
"Give your life to some noble cause, my dear," said Mrs. Paton earnestly, turning her eyes upon me. "The world is in sore need of consecrated women. You could be a foreign missionary, or a home missionary. Oh, don't waste your life on the frivolity called Society!"
This is not Professor Ballington's advice. Which is right? How glad I am that in this "land of the free," I am not compelled to follow any will but my own!