Lizzy's face flushed scarlet, and her eyes glittered wildly, as they seemed to say, “Have no fears on that score.” Then, suddenly changing to an ashy pallor, and in a voice trembling with intense feeling, she said: “But why seek out an existence of struggle and conflict? It is for me and my welfare that all your anxieties are exercised. Is it not possible that these can be promoted without the dangerous risk of this ambition? You know life well; tell me, then, are there not some paths a woman may tread for independence, and yet cause no blush to those who love her best? Of the acquirements you have bestowed upon me, are there not some which could be turned to this account? I could be a governess.”
“Do you know what a governess is, girl?—a servant in the garb of a lady; one whose mind has been cultivated, not to form resources for herself, but to be drained and drawn on by others. They used to kill a serf, in the middle ages, that a noble might warm his feet in the hot entrails; our modern civilization is satisfied by driving many a poor girl crazy, to cram some stupid numbskull with a semblance of knowledge. You shall not be a governess.”
“There is the stage, then,” cried she. “I'm vain enough to imagine I should succeed there.”
“I'll not hear of it,” broke in Davis, passionately. “If I was certain you could act like Siddons herself, you should not walk the boards. I know what a theatre is. I know the life of coarse familiarity it leads to. The corps is a family gathered together like what jockeys call 'a scratch team,'—a wheeler here, and a leader there, with just smartness enough to soar above the level of a dull audience, crammed with the light jest of low comedy, and steered by no higher ambition than a crowded benefit, or a junketing at Greenwich. How would you consort with these people?”
“Still, if I achieved success—”
“I won't have it,—that's enough. I tell you, girl, that there is but one course for you. You must be declared winner at the stand-house before you have been seen on the ground. If you have to run the gauntlet through all the slanders and stories they will rake up of me,—if, before you reach the goal, you have to fight all the lost battles of my life over again,—you 'll never see the winning-post.”
“And is it not better to confront the storm, and risk one's chances with the elements, than suffer shipwreck at once? I tell you, father,” cried she, eagerly, “I 'll face all the perils you speak of, boldly; I'll brave insolence, neglect, sarcasm,—what they will,—only let me feel one honest spot in my heart, and be able to say to myself, 'You have toiled lowly, and fared ill; you have dared a conflict and been worsted; but you have not made traffic of your affections, nor bought success by that which makes it valueless.'”
“These are the wild romances of a girl's fancy,” said Davis. “Before a twelvemonth was over, you could n't say, on your oath, whether you had married for love or interest, except that poverty might remind you of the one, and affluence suggest the other. Do you imagine that the years stop short with spring, and that one is always in the season of expectancy? No, no; months roll along, and after summer comes autumn, and then winter, and the light dress you fancied that you never need change would make but scanty clothing.”
“But if I am not able to bring myself to this?”
“Are you certain you will be able to bring me to worse?” said he, solemnly. “Do you feel, Lizzy, as if you could repay my long life of sacrifice and struggle by what would undo them all? Do you feel strong enough to say, 'My old father was a fool to want to make me better than himself; I can descend to the set he is ashamed of; and, more still, I can summon courage to meet taunts and insults on him, which, had I station to repel them from, had never been uttered'?”