"I'm twenty-four, as to that, but——"
"If you were your father's son, do you think he would forbid your having your own convictions and living up to them?" the older woman interrupted.
"No, but I'm only his daughter!" Selah said.
"Can't you see that is provided for? If he forbade you the house, you still have twelve hundred dollars a year, which is certainly more than he could afford to give you."
"That isn't it: he can't do without me, he needs me."
"Listen to me, Selah! Men have been our little children for so long that we do not know how to wean them. Here you are, ready to resign the greatest opportunity any young woman has ever had in this state in order to stay at home and break your father's breakfast eggs and putter over him and keep him soothed by agreeing with everything he says. That's why men can vote and we can't. That's why they get everything, and we get nothing but our board and clothes. We've humoured and pampered them until they have no sense of us and our needs," she concluded, twisting her hair angrily into a tight knot on the back of her head.
"Oh, I wish I knew what was right!" cried the girl, clasping her hands.
"We've tried the old sacrificial righteousness long enough, Selah, to know that it is not contagious so far as we are concerned. Now you just take my advice, and we'll have the new righteousness for women proved in Jordan County before the end of this year!"
"As soon as that?" cried the girl, enthused in spite of herself.
"Yes, if we can win at all we can do it in a few months. Regis and I planned the whole campaign this morning. Give me that kimono. Now let me have your hand. It's not so easy to get to one's feet at sixty, Selah!"