"Why, Rosie, are you turning into a woman's rights woman?" queried Max, laughing.
"I don't know, Maxie; those ideas just happened to suggest themselves," she answered. "I'll take time to think it all out one of these days, though; and I'll not promise not to turn into an advocate of women's right to have some say about the taxing of their own property. I see no reason why a man's rights in that direction should be considered superior to a woman's."
"No; nor I either," Max said. "And I'm as willing as possible that American women should have all their rights; but I shouldn't like to let ignorant women—foreign or coloured ones—vote."
"Yes, that's the trouble," laughed Rosie; "I shouldn't like that either. But I can't see that it's any better to let foreign men who are too ignorant to understand much or anything about our institutions, have a vote. I must say it strikes me as exceedingly insulting to educated, intelligent ladies, who are native Americans, to refuse a vote to them, and at the same time give it to such foreign-born men, or to male natives who know nothing, can't read or write, and have no property at all."
"Coloured men, for instance?" queried Max.
"Yes, coloured or white; it's the education I'm concerned about, not the colour. Mamma, do not you agree with me?"
"Yes, I do," Mrs. Travilla answered. "I have no desire to vote myself; but I think only native-born citizens, or those who have been twenty-one years in the country, should have a vote, and not even they unless able to read and write, capable of understanding our form of government, and possessed of some little property,—that last in order that they may appreciate more fully the burdens of taxation, and be less ready to make them heavier than need be."
"Papa," asked Gracie, "where abouts were the tea ships when the folks went on board and threw the tea into the water?"
"They were moored at Griffin's Wharf," he replied; "I can point it out to you directly."
"What is it, Papa, Gracie's talking about? A story?" queried little Elsie. "Please, Papa, tell it to us."