“You ought to learn, Emily,” said Mrs. Eastman. “Then you and Richard could match John and Muriel.” Emily stopped playing, and glanced at Wentworth with a slight curl of her lip, which did not escape the young artist. “Indeed, Mrs. Eastman,” she said, “it’s not in my line, and I should make a poor figure at it, I know.” “But it’s as beautiful as dancing,” said Mrs. Eastman. “And a great deal more womanly than waltzing,” put in Wentworth, interrupting, to have his fling at Emily, who was very fond of the waltz. Emily reddened, and fixed her lustrous eyes on Wentworth, hurt and angered by his remark. “Come, come,” interposed Muriel, gaily, “I won’t have Emily badgered into doing anything it is not her genius to do. Fencing is not in her line, as she says; but music, dear Emily,” she added, putting her arms around her friend, “music _is_ in your line, and charmingly you played for us. Your improvisation inspired our battle, and I should fence twice as well if I always had you to play for me.” “Faith, Emily, there’s something in that, I believe,” remarked Harrington. “But you fence wonderfully, Muriel, for one who has had only a year’s practice.” “Are you sure you don’t spare her, Harrington?” said Emily, slily. “Spare her? Indeed I don’t. I’d scorn to do such a thing!” answered Harrington, with animation. “That’s right, John,” said Muriel in a tone of gay gratitude; “it’s always a shame for a woman to be treated like a weak sister, and there’s a subtle assumption of our inferiority in the consideration we women get from men in this polite age, which does not please me at all. No effeminate culture for me! What I know or do, I will know or do thoroughly and vigorously, or not at all.” “Bravo, Muriel!” said Mrs. Eastman, rising, “so your father would say, if he were with us. There’s no reason, he used to observe, why girls shouldn’t be as vigorously trained as boys, and even supposing woman’s sphere to be purely and simply that of a wife and mother, said he, she ought, on the most ultra conservative principles, to have every power and faculty fully developed that she may fitly educate her children.” “Good! Woman’s rights doctrine, that,” said Wentworth, playfully. “Muriel, do you vote?” he added, with a quizzical air. “Yes,” answered Muriel, so naively, that Wentworth was taken aback. “Do you want to know how? Every election day, Patrick comes to ask me how he shall vote, and I tell him, and he votes. That is my ballot, for my judgment casts it. But what do you think of the good sense of a community that allowing me capable of instructing a man how to vote, will not allow that I am capable of voting myself? What do you think of the good sense of a country that denies to a cultured woman a right which it accords to the uncultured man who opens her street door?” “Well,” returned Wentworth, laughing, “we are not all such fools, Muriel, as to think the arrangement you criticise right and proper.”