Her eyes grew bright again, a smile played about her exquisite lips.
"Until that time comes I will study and gather more knowledge, and capacity to fit myself for a struggle with the world."
"You 'struggle with the world'!"
Her girlish pride in her high purpose being sensitive, she mistook the brusque tenderness in Saxham's face and voice for irony.
"Yes. Perhaps you may not believe it, but I know a great many useful things. Latin and French and German and Italian, well enough to teach and translate. I am well grounded in History and Science and Mathematics. I can take a temperature and make a poultice, or sweep a room and cook a dinner." She nodded at Saxham with a little spark of laughter underlying the sweet earnestness of her look. "Also, I have learned book-keeping and typewriting, and shorthand. I earn enough now, by bookbinding, to pay for my clothes. The Mother says that I am competent to earn my living anywhere, and to teach others to earn theirs. But I am not to begin until I am twenty-four. That is our agreement."
Saxham understood the fine maternal tact that never set this ardent young enthusiast chafing at the tightened rein. But he said roughly:
"The Mother.... How can she approve your joining the ranks of the Shrieking Sisterhood?"
"She knows," Lynette explained, with adorable gravity, "that I should never shriek."
"How will you bear parting from her? And how will she endure parting from you?"
The girl's mobile lips began to tremble. The luminous amber eyes were dimmed with moisture as she said: