"But would not your father consent?"
"My father is a man wedded to the past, and set against every change in ideas. I have tried to get his consent to let me go and study, and prepare myself to do something worth doing, but he is perfectly immovable. He says I know more now than half the women, and a great deal too much for my good, and that he cannot spare me. At twenty-one he makes no further claim on any of my brothers; their minority comes to an end at a certain period—mine, never."
We were walking in the moonlight up and down under the trees by the house. Caroline suddenly stopped.
"Cousin," she said, "if you succeed; if you get to be what I hope you will—high in the world, a prosperous editor—speak for the dumb, for us whose lives burn themselves out into white ashes in silence and repression."
"I will," I said.
"You will write to me; I shall rejoice to hear of the world through you—and I shall rejoice in your success," she added.
"Caroline," I said, "do you give up entirely wrestling with the angel?"
"No; if I did, I should not keep up. I have hope from year to year that something may happen to bring things to my wishes; that I may obtain a hearing with papa; that his sense of justice may be aroused; that I may get Uncle Jacob to do something besides recite verses and compliment me; that your mother may speak for me."
"You have never told your heart to my mother?"
"No; I am very reticent, and these adoring wives have but one recipe for all our troubles."