“And how will it change our position?” said Anne.
“How obtuse you are! Change our position! Why it will make us free—it will emancipate us—it will——”
“Particulars, particulars, Marjory?”
Miss Falconer paused.
“We shall not be thought unfit any longer to do what men do; our equal mental power and intelligence shall be recognised. We shall have equal rights—we shall be free!”
Anne looked up smiling.
“ ‘And what good came of it at last? said little Wilhelmine.’ ”
Miss Falconer started from her seat in anger, and walked quickly through the room for a moment, Alice looked on in wonder and alarm. At last Marjory approached the table, looked Anne in the face, half smiling, half angry, and replied, in a burst:
“ ‘Nay, that I cannot tell,’ quoth he,
But ’twas a glorious victory?’ ”
Conversation less abstract followed, when Lewis and Ralph joined them; and not long after, Anne and Alice resumed their places in the phaeton, and turned homewards, Lewis riding by their side. Anne’s spirits had wonderfully lightened during their drive, and now she defended Marjory Falconer, almost gaily, against the laughing and half-contemptuous attacks of Lewis.