“Jesting aside, my rehearsing is not all play, and my teachers are more than satisfied with me. They have given me the best of hopes that I shall, in the coming fall, be able to fill an engagement of some note. They tell me my talent is remarkable and that I must succeed. Professor Morris has written to the managers of several first class companies and daily expects an answer. Now, my girl, please do not accuse me of what is vulgarly termed ‘self-conceit,’ but you cannot know what it means to me to be successful. I love the profession that my talents fit me for, only second to that other object that thrills my whole being. I love, O Imelda, how I love Wilbur, the king of my heart. I love humanity, the down-trodden, and I love the liberty to do and to dare whatever my heart desires. And among those desires by no means the least is my love of the stage, despite the stigma that clings to it. But where so great the stigma as that which has fastened itself to the term ‘free love?’ or, for that matter, to any other reform?
“Two days later: The answer has come. An engagement has been secured me and—Hurrah! Imelda. In a few more weeks I shall be off on the road to see how easy or how hard it is to win bread and fame. If everything continues as favorable as the beginning appears to be my success is already assured. The vacancy that I am to fill is that of a leading lady, and I know I must strain every effort to please. My mother scarce knows whether she is pleased or sorry. I am sure she is the best mother any girl ever had, and while she is ambitious for me—while she desires to see me successful, her heart cannot conquer all its foolish fears. She fears the men of the world, and the very fact that radical ideas have been nurtured in my mind may bring me danger. But she forgets it also has brought me a knowledge that I could not well have acquired otherwise. I have been taught by object lessons, and I have learned to read character. It will not be an easy matter to try to pass off on me the spurious for the real, the genuine. Wilbur I know trusts me more fully, and why should he not? Does he not know that he is, and always must be, the best love of my heart? Always? Well, until I find some one who has scaled the ladder of life to a grander manhood, to nobler heights, he certainly will stand first, and I know so well such men are rare. He is glad for my sake that I have found an opening, but sad when he remembers that it necessitates a separation. He does not want to show the latter feeling, as he fears to cast a shadow on my glad prospects, but then you know, love is quick to note when every cord is not tuned to harmony.
“As yet I do not know at all where our company will be booked, but I do hope that sometime during the coming season we may stop for a week in Harrisburg. Do you think such a possibility would contain anything pleasurable?
“And now—but no! I was going to tell you another piece of news, but that will be Wilbur’s privilege, as he, too, wants to write a few lines. But I really must bring this to a close, or it might prove a task instead of a pleasure to read it. Kiss all those precious friends for me and say something nice to that one particular friend who is not a friend but something so much warmer, and soon, soon send an answer to your homesick, loving—”
Margaret.
Folding the closely written sheets Imelda looked up into Norman’s eyes and said:
“Well, sweetheart, what have you to say to my Margaret?”
“That she is a precious, sweet girl, and a true woman. I hope that she may indeed be successful in her chosen profession. But what has our friend Wilbur to say?” Without further comment Imelda unfolded another document and began to read:
“My Precious Friend:—I wonder if, after all that our Margaret girl has written, I shall be able to find something more to say. I am sure she has told you all the news there was to tell and maybe if I should write too lover-like, someone would object. How is it? Do you think Norman Carlton would grudge me the kiss which I am craving and longing for? Methinks I read between the lines of the truly grand letters he has been writing us lately, a broadening, a widening out, that was not there at first. I believe him indeed to be a grand, noble nature, possessed of a high type of manhood. I am positive the germ is there, even if yet somewhat hidden and undeveloped, and it behooves you, my little girl, with womanly tact to develop it that he may yet stand in our foremost ranks, working for the universal good of humanity and for the special good of sister woman. I expect when we meet to take by the hand a brother worthy of the name.
“With his natural reverence for womanhood it seems to me it ought not to be a difficult task for him to understand the injustice, the unfairness, aye, the cruelty that is being dealt out to woman; to always doom her brain to slumber, to inactivity; to expect her to stand with idly folded hands, denying her the right to be her own judge pertaining to matters of womanhood; deeming her incapable of understanding her own affairs; dooming her always to submit quietly to what man may wish to impose upon her; using her as a pretty plaything with which to amuse himself in any manner man may see fit. O it is horrible to place woman, the creator, the builder of the race, on a plane so low, and I cannot think that Norman Carlton fails to see these things in their true light.