MRS. BROWN. Oh, by all means. Dead women tell no lies, nor the truth either, and sometimes divorcées delight in telling tales about their first husbands’ second wives. But, tell me, why do you take the trouble to go to all these tiresome meetings when you might be enjoying yourself? Can’t Mildred go alone or with some friend?
MRS. TILSBURY. Well, I suppose it is no harder way of making a living than any other. I was an artist before I married Mr. Tilsbury. My father lost all his money in the panic of 1893 and I had to do something to help mother.
MRS. BROWN. Making a living? You don’t mean to tell me that the Women Suffragists are forced to pay their audiences to make them come to the meetings?
MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, no! Not that of course; but I suppose I might as well make a clean breast of it, particularly as I want you to help me!
MRS. BROWN. Yes, do. I should love to help you. You have always been so kind to me. What do you want me to do?
MRS. TILSBURY. It’s this way, you see. Mildred’s mother had all the money. George never had a cent of his own and he always spent whatever he could lay his hands on, so when Mrs. Tilsbury died she left a will bequeathing everything to Mildred except that old portrait there, which she gave to George as a token of her affection, and to show that she did not bear him any ill-will. The property is to belong to Mildred absolutely when she is twenty-five, or when she marries, if she should marry younger. Until either of these events happen, the estate is to be held in trust. The trustee appointed by Mrs. Tilsbury died a few days after she did, and George as Mildred’s father and nearest friend was made trustee. See?
MRS. BROWN. Yes. How clever you are. You talk just like a lawyer.
MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, my dear! I have heard it talked over so often that I have learned it by heart, but when I repeat those phrases, I feel just as if I had tight boots on. I am so glad to take them off and talk naturally again.
MRS. BROWN. I don’t see what all this has to do with Woman’s Suffrage. Did Mrs. Tilsbury make it a condition in her will that Mildred should be brought up to support “votes for women”?
MRS. TILSBURY. No, but when George first proposed to me, he told me all about the will, and said that it would be my duty if I married him to keep Mildred from marrying. He said that if she could be made to take an interest in other things and not marry until she was twenty-five, she would not be likely to marry at all, but would probably continue to live with us and leave the money in his hands; that it ran in the family to marry early or not at all, that two of her aunts had eloped when in their teens, and that the others were all old maids. Sometimes I think that George only married me so as to have some one to look after Mildred. A paid chaperone would not have the same interest at stake. She would only have her salary and Mildred might pension her if she married, but George and I are utterly dependent on that young girl.