"But is it not a serious thing?" I continued. "And ought we to take serious things any way but seriously? Miss Newton, do you not see that it is a question of right--not a question of taste or convenience? Your allegiance is not a piece of jewellery, that you can give to the person you like best; it is a debt, which you can only pay to the person to whom you owe it. Do you not see that?" "My dear Miss Courtenay," said Miss Newton, in a low voice, "excuse me, but you are a little too warm. It is not thought good taste, you know, to take up any subject so very decidedly as that." "And is right only to be thought a matter of taste?" cried I, quite disregarding her caution. "Am I to rule my life, as I do my trimmings, by the fashion-book? We have not come to that yet in the North, I can assure you! We are a sturdy race there, Madam, and don't swallow our opinions as we do pills, of whatever the apothecary likes to put into them. We prefer to know what we are taking." "Do excuse me," said Miss Newton, with laughter in her eyes, and laying her hand upon my arm; "but don't you see people are looking round?" "Let them look round!" cried I. "I am not ashamed of one word that I have spoken." "Dear Miss Courtenay, I am not objecting to your words. Every one, of course, has his opinions: yours, I suppose, are your father's." "Not a bit of it!" cried I; "they are my own!" "But young ladies of your age should not have strong opinions," said she. She is about five years older than I am. "Will you tell me how to help it?" said I. "I must go through the world with my eyes shut, if I am not to form opinions." "Oh yes, moderately," she replied. "Shut my eyes moderately?" I asked; "or, form opinions moderately?" "Both," answered Miss Newton, laughing. "Your advice is worse than wasted, my dear Miss Newton," said a voice behind us. "That young person will never do anything in moderation." "You know better, Hatty!" said I. "And, as your elder sister, my darling, let me give you a scrap of advice. Men never like contentious, arguing women. Don't be a little goose." I don't know whether I am a goose or a duck, but I am afraid I could have done something to Hatty just then which I should have found agreeable, and she would not. That elder-sister air of hers is so absurd, for she is not eighteen months older than I am; I can stand it well enough from Sophy, but from Hatty it really is too ridiculous. But that was nothing, compared with the insult she had offered, not so much to me, as through me to all womanhood. "Men don't like!" Does it signify three halfpence what they like? Are women to make slaves of themselves, considering what men fancy or don't fancy? Men, mark you! Not, your father, or brother, or husband: that would be right and reasonable enough: but, men!