"I hope I may be.—What are you knitting, grandmother?"
"Any woman might be happy to have Ralph propose to her. And any woman but your mother's daughter might have some care for family happiness and advantage—"
"Oh, grandmother, would my unhappiness in truth advantage the family?"
"Unhappiness! There's no need for unhappiness. That's your mother again! Ralph is a splendid man. You ought to feel flattered. I don't believe in marrying without love, certainly not without respect; but when you see it is your duty and make your mind submissive you can manage easily enough to feel both. That's the trouble with you as it was with your mother before you. You don't see your duty and you don't make your mind submissive. I've no patience with you."
"Grandmother," said Hagar, "did you ever realize that you yourself only make your mind submissive when it comes into relation with men, or with ideas advanced by men? I have never seen you humble-minded with a woman."
Old Miss appeared to take this as a startling proposition, and to consider it for a moment; then, "I don't know what you mean."
"I mean that outraged nature must be itself somewhere—else there's annihilation."
Old Miss's needles clicked. "I don't pretend to be 'literary,' or to understand literary talk. What Moses and St. Paul said and the way we've always done in Virginia is good enough for me. You're perverse and rebellious as Maria was before you. It's simple obstinacy, your not caring for Ralph—and as for throwing away Medway's million dollars, there ought to be a law to keep you from doing it!—Are you going upstairs? My scrapbook is on the fourth shelf of the big closet. Get it and read that piece about Ralph."