Thus speaks Mrs. Robert Lennox of her husband’s sister. She is talking to her husband while they are going home from a fashionable church in New York. She is a stately, handsome lady, to whom her rich attire seems well adapted. Just now she appears displeased and somewhat more haughty than usual, but the face is refined and the bearing polished.
More gentle than his wife in the treatment of the question in hand is Mr. Lennox.
“Well, I cannot say Elizabeth is so very far out of the way. You know John’s means are very limited, and these convent schools are cheaper than ours. Besides, Elizabeth knows Elly cannot compete in dress and all the furbelows, as our Lizzie does. So she prefers not to have her exposed to the uncomfortableness of being the subject of derogatory comparisons. You know young folks are keenly sensitive on such points.”
“But, Robert, must such reasons
weigh against the risk of perverting the girl’s faith, the undermining of her religion? Would you trust those sly, insinuating sisters with our daughter?”
Mr. Lennox smiles significantly as he replies: “I would not object to Lizzie’s receiving some of that peculiar, modest, quiet air which those sisters have and so often impart to their pupils. There is some nameless charm, I cannot describe it better than by saying it is the opposite of that which the young ladies of the present day cultivate for their deportment, and which seems to belong almost exclusively to this training.”
“Pshaw! Mere affectation of meekness. The girls are all the same at heart. Why should not they be? I tell you it isn’t worth the risk! Mark my words, you’ll see the effect on Elly’s religion.”
“Well, you know Elizabeth said that even that change of religion was better than the irreligion or isms of the day.”
“Now, Robert, it is just to oppose me that you so persistently uphold Elizabeth in this. Is it to be supposed that girls of sixteen are going to take to isms in Protestant schools or irreligion either? Why, they don’t know enough for that, at their age!”
“I do not dispute you. I only think that Elizabeth has preferred for Elly this risk rather than have her of John’s state of mind. And that is why John is so easy in the matter. Being of no faith himself, he prides himself on being also of no prejudice. ‘The greater the faith, the greater the bigotry,’ he says.”