A daughter is a great responsibility. But so also is a mother. It is wrong to suppose that children feel no sense of responsibility for their progenitors. That larger education which so many women receive vicariously when their daughters go to college is one enforcing nice discrimination upon the educator as well as upon the educated. The American does not object to being governed. He only asks to select the machinery and the engineer. The American’s daughter expounds him. If every husband contrives to let his wife know how he likes to be managed, every daughter may find ways of making the yoke of her daughterhood exceeding light. In the debated matter of authority the American mother gives that she may receive. I don’t suppose there ever was a more perfect partnership, taken at its best, than the partnership of an American mother and her daughter, until marriage, which dissolves all other partnerships, brings its great readjustments.... [Illustration] Miss Velrose’s voice ... behind my chair. I must have dozed off for a while there.... Yes, it is Miss Velrose. “It was an interesting picture,” laughed Miss Velrose from beyond the back of another chair, “‘Philosophy Asleep.’” “Philosophy has been caught napping before this—and by Woman.” “I should think Philosophy might need a good deal of sleep.” “It learns more when it is awake.” I looked straight across into Miss Velrose’s burning blue eyes. “Where is Rollington?” Miss Velrose underwent a slight change of color. “A person who has just awakened often asks such curious questions,” she said. “I was awake a little while ago—when you were walking on the path leading from the pine grove. I wish you would be seated. It has been dull here. And you must be tired after walking from the Point.” “I sha’n’t sit down unless you can explain why you are so well acquainted with my movements. Were you _tracking_ me?” “Dear me, no! I had been sitting here reading the diary of a Puritan woman, Jonathan Edwards’ sister.” “Prying into a woman’s diary.” “That is what diaries are written for—to be pried into. What better luck could sister Esther ask than so reverent a reader. You must let me read you a few scraps of it. We shall let Rollington go for the present.” She gave me a queer look and seated herself in profile. Few girls have a profile like Miss Velrose’s. She would delight a cameo cutter. Her nose is just right, and noses are important in profiles.