"Stick up for us," whispered Val's voice behind Ethan.
"The result is," her father went on, "it's harder to find in America to-day a good cook or chambermaid than to find a woman musician, novelist, linguist, or painter."
"Say something," admonished the low voice from the bottom step.
"I imagine," the perfidious Ethan remarked, "that there are accomplished persons on both sides the sea who are ready to excel in any art except the art of being of use."
"Exactly. These people no doubt exist everywhere, but they should be swept off the face of America." Val looked out anxiously past the sheltering form of her cousin. "Farmers', tradesmen's daughter's all over the land are giving up house-work"—Val withdrew her head and sat in obscurity—"giving up field and dairy work. Their foolish fathers buy them pianos, buy them novels; and able-bodied young women idle away their days in rocking-chairs, breeding discontent and disease."
Val appeared to be making preparations to retire.
"You think," asked Ethan, "there is any application in the fact—to—a people of another class?"
"Most assuredly. What the ignorant ignorantly despise, we must elevate. We must show them the bottomless vulgarity of their view." The restive movement on the bottom step augmented his ire. "I assure you the market cries aloud for house-keepers, nurses, laundresses, sempstresses. We are not in need of any more poetesses, department clerks, singers."
He had got up and was glowering unmistakably at the girl who had risen from the bottom step.