"I was not disputing your right, Miss Marsden, but—"
"O, I understand. You are of those who think so poorly of women as to regard them merely as men's pets,—the weaker sex, you would call us,—who prefer to wait till everything is made nice and comfortable, and then languidly step forward. In your reading of history, I think you must have skipped several chapters."
"You do me injustice," said Hemstead, warmly, and falling blindly into her trap. "If I had skipped all the chapters which treat of woman's heroism, in doing and suffering, I should, indeed, know little of history. She has proved herself the equal, and at times the superior of man."
"Pardon me," said Lottie, in a hurt and injured tone; "I shall reach the unwelcome truth at last: it is not woman in general who is weak, but Lottie Marsden in particular. I am very sorry that you have so poor an opinion of me, and I shall try to change it somewhat by enduring, on this drive, all the exposure and cold that you can."
As the sleigh just then came up, she settled the question by springing in and taking her place on the driver's seat.
Hemstead was perfectly nonplussed, and Mr. Dimmerly, who had stood in the door and heard what had been said, retreated rapidly, as he broke out into the most irrepressible chuckle in which he had yet indulged.
"Now, Miss Lottie," whined De Forrest, coming out muffled to his eyes, "are you going to sit there?"
"Certainly. You have Addie and Bel to talk to. Did you suppose that Mr. Hemstead was to be treated like a coachman because he kindly consented to drive us over?"
"Let me drive, then."
"No, indeed," cried Bel and Addie in chorus; "we won't trust to your driving." So De Forrest, with very poor grace, took his seat with them, and with his back to those whom he would gladly have watched most suspiciously. He had grown desperately jealous of Hemstead, and yet his vanity would not permit him to believe it possible that Lottie Marsden, of all others, could be won to such a life as the predestined missionary would lead. Like the narrow rationalists of this world, he was ever underrating the power of that kind of truth with which Hemstead was identified. To all of his class, the apparent self-sacrifice caused by love to God, and its kindred flame, love (not a passion) for some human object, has ever appeared both stupid and irrational. He did not understand Lottie, and could only curse the wretched visit, and wish it over every moment. When she returned to her accustomed life in New York, she would, he believed, soon be her old self.