“How can anything be above Dorothy’s station, Madison? She is the daughter and sole heir of one of the oldest and best families in Virginia. I have never heard of anything higher than that.” “Oh, certainly. But that isn’t what I mean. You see Dorothy has been permitted to read a lot of books that young women don’t usually read, and study a lot of subjects that young women don’t usually study. She has got her head full of notions, and this trip will make the matter worse. I think women should look up to their husbands and not down upon them, and how can Dorothy----” “How would it do, Madison, for the young men to make an effort on their own account, to improve their minds and build up their characters so that their wives might look up to them without an effort? There are some men to whom the most highly cultivated women can look up in real respect, and it is quite natural that the best of the young women should choose these for their husbands. Many young men refuse to make themselves worthy in that way, or fail in such efforts as they may make to accomplish it. If I understand you properly, you would forbid the girls to cultivate what is best in them lest they grow superior to their coming husbands.” “That’s it, Cousin Polly. The happy women are those who feel the superiority of their husbands and find pleasure in bowing to it.” “I thought that was your idea. It is simply abominable. It makes no more of a woman than of a heifer or a filly. It regards her as nothing more or better than a convenience. I’ll have nothing to do with such a doctrine. Dorothy South is a girl of unusual character, and unusual mind, so far as I can judge. She has naturally done all she could to cultivate what is best in herself, and, so far as I can control the matter she shall go on doing so, as every woman and every man ought to do. When she has made the best she can of herself, she may perhaps meet some man worthy of her, some man fit to be her companion in life. If she does, she’ll probably marry him. If she meets none such she can remain single. That isn’t at all the worst thing that can happen to a woman. It is a hideous thing to marry a girl to her inferior. You have yourself suggested that such a marriage can only mean wretchedness to both. And your plan of avoiding such marriages is to keep the girls inferior by denying them the privilege of self-cultivation. I tell you it is an abominable plan. It’s Turkish, and the only right way to carry it out is to shut women up in harems and forbid them to learn how to read. For if a woman or a man of brains learns that much, the rest cannot be prevented. So you may make up your mind that Dorothy is going to make this trip. I’ve already consented to it, and the more I think about it, the more I am in favor of it. My only fear is that she may fall off the earth when she gets to the other side, and I reckon that will not happen, for both Arthur and Edmonia assure me they didn’t fall off when they were over there.”