"Heaven forbid!" sighed the doctor's wife, who was reared in the good old time when music, manners and morals were the only accomplishments in which girls were instructed.
"Are you in favor of suffrage?" asked the doctor.
"Suffrage!" repeated Gay, for the word was not a familiar one.
"You will vote, won't you?"
"Yes," said Gay, on safe ground now, "when I'm twenty-one."
"How terrible!" gasped poor Miss Linn. "What is the world coming to? The ballot and a profession! And to think such heresy is alive in Elinor Walcott's household!"
"But you will go to balls and parties when you grow up, won't you?" asked the doctor's wife, hoping this remark would elicit a fitting reply.
"Not much!" said Gay, scornfully. "My father says we want fewer leaders of the cotillon and more leaders of opinion in this country. I mean to make mother proud of me."
"I think you'll do it, little girl," said the doctor. "Your parents have exemplified in your training the advice of the eminent divine—'make all your sons virtuous and all your daughters brave.'"