"I should come back"—she said after a moment in a low troubled voice. "Let me get this training, and then if you want me, darling, I'll come back."
"Can't you be happy with us, Susy?"
"I want to know something—and do something," said Susy, with intensity—evading the question. "It's such a big world, mother! I'll be better worth having afterwards."
Mrs. Amberley said nothing. But a little later she went into her husband's study.
"Frank—I think we'll have to let her," she said piteously.
The Rector looked up assentingly, and put his hand in his wife's.
"It's strange how different it all seems nowadays," said Mrs. Amberley, in her low quavering voice. "If I'd wanted to do what Susy wants, my mother would have called me a wicked girl to leave all my duties—and I shouldn't have dared. But we can't take it like that, Frank, somehow."
"No," said the Rector slowly. "In the old days it used to be only duties for the young—now it's rights too. It's God's will."
"Susy loves us, Frank. She's a good girl."
"She's a good girl—and she shall do what she thinks proper," said the
Rector, rising heavily.