"You ought to like her--she hates our movement!" And Verena asked, further, numerous questions about the brilliant Adeline; whether he saw her often, whether she went out much, whether she was admired in New York, whether he thought her very handsome. He answered to the best of his ability, but soon made the reflexion that he had not come out to Monadnoc Place to talk about Mrs. Luna; in consequence of which, to change the subject (as well as to acquit himself of a social duty), he began to speak of Verena's parents, to express regret that Mrs. Tarrant had been sick, and fear that he was not to have the pleasure of seeing her. "She is a great deal better," Verena said; "but she's lying down; she lies down a great deal when she has got nothing else to do. Mother's very peculiar," she added in a moment; "she lies down when she feels well and happy, and when she's sick she walks about--she roams all round the house. If you hear her on the stairs a good deal, you can be pretty sure she's very bad. She'll be very much interested to hear about you after you have left." Ransom glanced at his watch. "I hope I am not staying too long--that I am not taking you away from her." "Oh no; she likes visitors, even when she can't see them. If it didn't take her so long to rise, she would have been down here by this time. I suppose you think she has missed me, since I have been so absorbed. Well, so she has, but she knows it's for my good. She would make any sacrifice for affection." The fancy suddenly struck Ransom of asking, in response to this, "And you? would you make any?" Verena gave him a bright natural stare. "Any sacrifice for affection?" She thought a moment, and then she said: "I don't think I have a right to say, because I have never been asked. I don't remember ever to have had to make a sacrifice--not an important one." "Lord! you must have had a happy life!" "I have been very fortunate, I know that. I don't know what to do when I think how some women--how most women--suffer. But I must not speak of that," she went on, with her smile coming back to her. "If you oppose our movement, you won't want to hear of the suffering of women!" "The suffering of women is the suffering of all humanity," Ransom returned. "Do you think any movement is going to stop that--or all the lectures from now to doomsday? We are born to suffer--and to bear it, like decent people." "Oh, I adore heroism!" Verena interposed. "And as for women," Ransom went on, "they have one source of happiness that is closed to us--the consciousness that their presence here below lifts half the load of _our_ suffering."