"Why doesn't she take him, and stop all her nonsense? I hear she told those poor, silly strikers in Dean's rubber-factory to support Smith, the 'Woman's Candidate'! Much 'supporting' they can do! And the joke of it is, Smith himself owns the controlling stock. She had better be at home, darning her stockings."
"Oh, now, Father, you must remember it isn't as if Ellen didn't have plenty of servants to do things like that."
"I hear she's signed that petition to have certain kinds of diseases registered. I don't know what the world's coming to, that girls know about such things!"
"Well, of course, girls are more intelligent than they used to be."
"If she's so intelligent, I'll give her a book on Bacon-Shakespeare that will exercise her brains,—and she can stop concerning herself with matters that decent women know nothing about. Thank Heaven, our Laura is as ignorant as a baby! Or, if Fred is so bent on reforming things, let her have a Sunday-school class," said Mr. Childs, puffing and scowling. "Look here, Mother, if you have any influence over her, try and get her to take young Maitland. I should sleep more easily in my bed if I thought she had a man to keep her in order."
"But he has gone away," Mrs. Childs objected.
"That's because she has turned him down. Maybe he'll never think of her again; I wouldn't, if I were a young fellow! I'd want a woman, not a man in petticoats. But if he does get on her track again, tell her to take him; tell her I say she'll get a crooked stick if she waits too long. You're sure Laura isn't blue about him?"
"Now, Father! You are the most foolish man about that child!..."
"Why has Maitland gone on that expedition, Fred?" said Mr. Weston.