Cornelia scorned this poor attempt of her mother. "If I can't succeed as men succeed, and be a great painter, and not just a great woman painter, I'd rather be excused altogether. Even Rosa Bonheur: I don't believe her horses would have been considered so wonderful if a man had done them. I guess that's what Mr. Ludlow meant, and I guess he was right. I guess if a girl wants to turn out an artist she'd better start by being a boy."
"I guess," said Mrs. Burton, with admiring eyes full of her beauty, "that if Mr. Ludlow could see you now, he'd be very sorry to have you a boy!"
Cornelia blushed the splendid red of a brunette. "There it is, Mrs. Burton! That's what's always in everybody's mind about a girl when she wants to do something. It's what a magnificent match she'll make by her painting or singing or acting! And if the poor fool only knew, she needn't draw or sing or act, to do that."
"A person would think you'd been through the wars, Cornelia," said her mother.
"I don't care! It's a shame!"
"It is a shame, Nelie," said Mrs. Burton, soothingly; and she added, unguardedly, "and I told Mr. Ludlow so, when he spoke about a girl's being happily married, as if there was no other happiness for a girl."
"Oh! He thinks that, does he?"
"No, of course, he doesn't. He has a very high ideal of women; but he was just running on, in the usual way. He told afterwards how hard the girl art-students work in New York, and go ahead of the young men, some of them—where they have the strength. The only thing is that so few of them have the strength. That's what he meant."
"What do you think, mother?" asked the girl with an abrupt turn toward her. "Do you think I'd break down?"
"I guess if you didn't break down teaching school, that you hated, you won't break down studying art, when you love it so."