Pray You, Sir, Whose Daughter?

by Helen H. Gardener

"Such bills as this one," she drew a small printed slip from her bosom and handed it to Gertrude, "such bills as that would never be dreamed of by men if they knew they must pass the discussion of a pure girl or a mother—never! Their only chance is secret session, and the fact that even men like your—like Mr. Martin and—and—" she was going to say "your father," but the girl pressed her hand and she did not. "That even such as they—for what reason heaven only knows—think they are serving the best interests of the women they love by a silence which fosters and breeds just such measures as—"

Gertrude was reading the queer, blind phraseology of the bill. Katherine had watched her daughter's face as she talked, and now the girl's lips were moving and she read audibly: "be, and is hereby enacted, that henceforth the legal age in the state of New York whereat a female may give consent to the violation of her own person shall be reduced to ten years."

Gertrude dropped the paper in her lap and looked up like a frightened, hunted creature. "Great God!" she exclaimed, with an intensity born of a sudden revelation. "Great God! and they call themselves men! And other men keep silence—furnish all the soil and nurture for infamy like that! Those who keep silence are as guilty as the rest! Those who try to prevent women from knowing—oh, mamma!" Her eyes were intense. She sprang to her feet; "and John Martin, who thinks he loves me is one of those men! Knowing such a bill as that is pending, his indignation is aroused, not at the bill, not at the men who try to smuggle it through, not at the awful thing it implies, but that so strict a silence is not kept that such as we may not know of it! He blames Selden Avery for coming to me—to us—with his splendid chivalry, and sharing with us his horror, making us the confidants of that inner conscience which sees, in the intended victims of this awful bill, his little sisters and yours and mine!" There were indignant tears in her eyes. She closed them, and her white lips were drawn tense. Presently she asked, without opening her eyes: "Mamma, do you suppose if you, instead of Mr. Avery, were chairman of that committee, that such a bill as that would ever have been presented? Do you suppose, if any mother on earth held the veto power, that such a bill would ever disgrace a statute book? Are there enough men, even of a class who generally go to the Legislature, who, in spite of their fatherhood, in spite of the fact that they have little sisters, are such beasts as to pass a bill like that? A ten-year-old girl! A mere baby! And—oh, mamma! it is too hideous to believe, even of—such a bill could never pass. Never on earth! Surely, Ettie Berton, poor little thing, has the only father living who is capable of that!"

Mrs. Foster opened her lips to say that several states already had the law, and that one had placed the age at seven; but she checked herself. Her daughter's excitement was so great, she decided to wait. The experience of the past few months had awakened the fire in the nature of this strong daughter of hers. She had seen the cool, steady, previously indifferent, well-poised girl stirred to the very depths of her nature over the awful conditions of poverty, ignorance, and vice she had, for the first time, learned to know. Gertrude had become a regular student of some of the problems of life, and she had carried her studies into practical investigation. It had grown to be no new thing for her to take Francis, or Ettie, or both, when she went on these errands, and the study of their points of view—of the effect of it all upon their ignorance-soaked minds, had been one of the most touching things to her. Their imaginations were so stunted—so embryonic, so undeveloped that they saw no better way. To them, ignorance, poverty, squalor, and vice were a necessary part of life. Wealth, comfort, happiness, ambition were, naturally and rightly, perquisites, some way, some how, of the few.

"God rules, and all is as he wishes it or it would not be that way," sagely remarked Francis King, one day. It had startled Gertrude. Her philosophy, her observation, her reason, and her religion were in a state of conflict just then. She had alway supposed that she was an Episcopalian with all that this implied. She was beginning to doubt it at times.

Mrs. Foster looked at her daughter now, as she sat there flushed and excited. She wondered what would come of it all. She had always studied this daughter of hers, and tried to follow the girl's moods. Now she thought she would cut across them.

"Gertrude, you may put that bill with your letter. Mr. Avery mailed it to me. Of course he meant that I should show it to you if I thought best. I did think best, but now—but—I don't want you to excite yourself too—" She broke off suddenly. Her daughter's eyes were upon her in surprise. Mrs. Foster laughed a little nervously, and kissed the girl's hand as it lay in her own. "It seems rather droll for your gay little mother to caution you against losing control of yourself, doesn't it?" she asked. "You who were always all balance wheel, as your father says. But—"

"Mamma, don't you think Mr. Avery did perfectly right to send me that letter and this to you?" broke in Gertrude, as if she had not heard the admonition of her mother, and had followed her own thoughts from some more distant point.

"Perfectly," said her mother. "He was evidently deeply disturbed by the bill. He felt that you were, and should be, his confidant. He simply did not dream of hiding it from you, I believe. It was the spontaneous act of one who so loves you that his whole life—all of that which moves him greatly—must, as a matter of course, be open to you. I thought that all out when the bill came addressed to me. He—" The girl kissed her in silence.

"You have such splendid self-respect, Gertrude. Most of us—most women—have none. We do not expect, do not demand, the least respect that is real from men. They have no respect for our opinions, and so upon all the real and important things of life, they hold out to us the sham of silence as more respectful than candor. And we—most of us—are weak enough to say we like it. Most of us—"