“Philip, I—I dare say I expressed myself rather strongly;” (this from Miss Ware was a great concession). “Was there any one special in your mind?”
“And what if there was, Mary?” answered the Doctor, slightly appeased but not wholly mollified, “would you really care to know?”
“Yes, I should. It is so unusual for you to be developing match-making proclivities.”
“That is true. I seldom think of such matters and, mind you, I do not by any means think that girls should marry just for the sake of marrying—that it is the end and aim of their existence—but in the case of the Dales my heart is set upon it.”
“I thought you approved of women who were self-supporting,” remarked his sister, considerably surprised at the view he presented.
“So I do, when circumstances require it or their temperaments demand independence and they are properly trained to stand shoulder to shoulder with men in business or professional life. But these little girls are wrestling with the bare problems of existence, working with the nervous tension of a high-bred race-horse, using up their vitality over pots and kettles and pans and smiling, smiling all the time as if they liked it!”
“Why, I thought they did like it!” Verily this was a morning of surprises.
“Like it!” cried the Doctor, trying to keep down the anger in his voice, “would you like it to be taken out of a life of keen enjoyment—a life crowded with incidents and continuous change of scene such as the Dales lived and be put down in a comparatively strange place, unrecognized socially, without young companionship and, worse still, to see a father whom they adore perfectly helpless and dependent on them for every mouthful of bread! It is a wonder to me the spirit is not crushed out of them!”
“I never quite thought of it like that, Philip.”
“Of course you didn’t, Mary. You thought they were rebellious, head-strong young things who liked being cramped up in a kitchen all day, beating their arms off over batches of dough and stirring mayonnaise until they are ready to fall into the bowl from sheer exhaustion! But I want you to look at it differently, I do indeed, and I want you to help me put a new interest in their lives.”