"That is the reason I have chosen you to collect the data, Evelina,"
answered Jane, with another of those glorious tonic looks, issuing from
my backbone in her back. "The ultimate woman must be superb in body,
brain, and heart. You are that now more nearly than any one I have ever
seen. You are the woman!"
I was silenced with awe.
"Jane plans to choose five girls who would otherwise have to spend their
lives teaching in crowded cities after leaving college and to start them
in any profession they choose, with every chance of happiness, in the
smaller cities of the South and Middle West," said Mary Elizabeth
gently, and somehow the tears rose in my eyes, as I thought how the poor
dear had been teaching in the high school in Chicago the two glorious
years I had been frolicking abroad. No time, and no men to have good
times with.
And there were hundreds like her, I knew, in all the crowded parts of
the United States. And as I had begun, I thought further. Just because I
was embarrassed at the idea of proposing to some foolish man, who is of
no importance to me, himself, or the world in general, down in Glendale,
where they have all known me all my life, and would expect anything of
me anyway after I have defied tradition and gone to college, five
lovely, lonely girls would have to go without any delightful suitors
like Richard--or Polk Hayes, forever.
And, still further, I thought of the other girls, coming under the
influence of those five, who might be encouraged to hold up their heads
and look around, and at least help out their Richards in their
matrimonial quest, and as I sat there with Jane's compelling and Mary
Elizabeth's hungry eyes on me, I felt that I was being besought by all
the lovers of all the future generations to tear down some sort of awful
barrier and give them happiness.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25