Hildegarde’s soreness of heart, her hopelessness of the greater gladness for herself, left her the freer to think of it as only half an achievement—this bringing her father back in the flesh. She must see his spirit “at home” before her task was ended. No discreet opportunity was lost to set her mother in an explanatory light. When the neighbors chorused admiration of the girl’s pluck and resourcefulness on the great journey, oh-ing and ah-ing, and “How on earth did you manage?”—“It was never the least difficult,” Hildegarde would interrupt. “When I was at a loss I always thought how my mother would take hold of the matter, and when I had imagined her into my perplexity it wasn’t a perplexity any longer. I saw just what she would do, and I saw it was just right.” Only once, with her father alone, did she venture openly to suggest a corrected judgment of the past. They had been talking of Mrs. Locke. Mar, who had failed so signally in getting a post for himself, had succeeded in getting one for his daughter’s friend. “You _have_ been good about it!” Hildegarde said. “I’m so grateful. So is she.” “So is the firm. She’s a success.” “It just shows!” “Shows what?” “That the reason women aren’t more use in the world is because they don’t have a chance.” “H’m!” said Mr. Mar. “No. Not a real chance, father.” “Good heaven! They have everything.” “No. They don’t have education. I don’t mean out of books. It’s just as Mrs. Locke says. They stand as little chance of knowing about life as kings and queens do. They are still a class apart.” “Oh, she talks like that—your Mrs. Locke?” said Mar, with an obvious uneasiness. “Not of herself. Of the rest of us—unless”—she smiled—“unless we’ve been to Nome; or, like mother, to Mecca.” “To Mecca?” With a face more serious the girl went on: “I’ve only just begun to notice who among the women I know are the most successful and the most sensible. They’re the ones that have had the most experience, gone about most, or”—her voice sunk—“had some great trouble, _known_ about life somehow by knocking up against it. It looks as if the only way to get judgment is by having to judge. Men, of course—you’re always practising. You’re _in_ things. You aren’t an outsider.” “Who is an outsider?” “Every woman, when she comes out of her own front door. Now”—before he could answer she hurried on—“now, there’s mother” (she spoke as if she had only just remembered her). “A clever person like mother—why, if she’d had ten times as much to do, she’d have done it ten times better. And she wouldn’t have had time to think about—a—the cracks in the china. Yes, father, you may depend upon it, it’s the women that haven’t got much in them that fit best into the small places. Mother’s always been crowded.”