"Teaching has always seemed to me a most suitable occupation for a woman," suggested Mrs. Millard.
"The day has passed, Caroline, when just anybody can teach."
"I don't know any girl who had a better education or was more studious than you, Sarah," spoke up her aunt.
"And when Brother Willie died I didn't know how to write a check or make the discount on a gas bill."
"I feel as you do, Miss Sarah. It is dreadful to be so ignorant as women are of the simplest things," exclaimed Alexina.
"Still, I think it is more comfortable not to have to know about them, don't you?" Miss Virginia asked timidly.
"What are you people talking about?" The question came from the doorway, where Madelaine stood, a vision of such airiness, daintiness, and ethereal charm that nothing else seemed worth a thought. Behind her towered Wayland Leigh.
"May we join the party and help decide the burning question?" he asked. "Don't get up, Miss Virginia; we'll find chairs."
"I know it is the shop," said Madelaine, floating across the room to an ottoman beside Mrs. Millard. Madelaine, too, had an instinct for the effective, and nothing could have made a more charming picture. "Grandpa and Mr. Goodman were at it a few minutes ago. Mr Goodman talks about an injunction."
"We began with the shop, but we seem to have switched off on to education," said Mrs. Leigh. "One never heard such talk when I was young. Then we had plenty of servants, and there was always some man to attend to business. After the war I asked our old Malinda one day how she liked freedom. 'Well, Miss Sally,' she said, 'I likes it, and I don't like it. I tell you what, Miss Sally, freedom's monstrous industrious.' That is what I think about these times,—'they's monstrous industrious.' Goodness, I have gone and told a story!"