As she turned she was intercepted by Stanton, who said:
"Miss Burton, let my present to you my cousin, Miss Mayhew."
A ray from a parlor lamp fell upon Ida's face, and Van Berg saw at once that it was clouded and unamiable in its expression. Stanton had evidently been reproaching her severely.
Miss Burton held out her hand cordially and said; "I wish to thank you for maintaining the credit of our sex this morning. These superior men are so fond of portraying us as hysterical, clinging creatures whose only instinct in peril is to throw themselves on man's protection, that I always feel a little exultation when one of the 'weaker and gentler sex,' as we are termed, show the courage and presence of mind which they coolly appropriate as masculine qualities."
"Are you an advocate of woman's rights, Miss Burton?" asked Miss Mayhew, stung by the unconscious sarcasm of the lady's words, to reply in almost as resentful a manner as if a wound had been intended.
"Not of woman's, particularly," was the quiet answer; "I would be glad if every one had their rights."
"You philanthropy is very wide, certainly."
"And therefore very thin, perhaps you think, since it covers so much ground. I agree with you, Miss Mayhew, that general good-will is as cold and thin as moonshine. One ray of sunlight that warms some particular thing into life is worth it all."
"Indeed! I think I prefer moonlight."
"There are certain absorbing avocations in life to which moonshine is better adapted then sunlight, is probably the thought in my cousin's mind," said Stanton, satirically.