"That is exactly what I ought to be," Alice said, abruptly. "Just think how pleased father would be." "What ought you to be that you are not, my dear?" Mrs. Gorham inquired, surprised. "Why, a boy like Allen just ready to start off on a business career. That's about the only disappointment father has ever experienced, not having a son to succeed him. You know as I do how much it would mean to him to 'found a house,' as he calls it. I've seen him looking at Pat and me so many times with an expression in his eyes which I understood, and it has hurt me all through that I couldn't have been the son he longed for. The aggravating part of it all is that nothing interests me so much as business. I must have inherited father's love for it. I adore listening to him when he is discussing some great problem with Mr. Covington. It seems to me the grandest thing in the world to be able to influence people, and to create or expand industries and actually to accomplish results." Mrs. Gorham understood the girl's mood and knew that it was wiser to let her run on without interruption. "I don't feel the same about other things," Alice continued, pausing from time to time as she became more introspective. "I'm fond of poetry, of course, but I can't understand how any one can be satisfied to do nothing else but write poems; I admire art, but with my admiration for the artist's work there's a real pity for the man because he is debarred from the world of action. If I were a man I would have to do something which had a physical as well as an intellectual struggle in it, with a reward at the end to be striven for which was not expressed alone in the praise of the world--it would have to be power itself." "I would rather be a damosel," Patricia put in. "You are your father's own daughter, Alice," Mrs. Gorham said, as the girl ceased speaking. "You could not be his child and feel otherwise." "But that makes it all the harder," Alice rebelled. "It doesn't give me any chance to do the things I want to do. I must '_Sigh and cry And still sit idly by_.'" The drive was coming to an end, and Mrs. Gorham was unwilling to leave the conversation at just this point. "There is another side to all this, Alice dear, which you mustn't overlook," she said, seriously. "It is woman's part to inspire rather than to do, and the fact that it is often the more difficult role to play perhaps makes it the nobler part, after all. The world sings of the bravery of men who go forth to battle; we older women know that it takes no less courage to let them go and to content ourselves in our impotency, while they are spurred on by the excitement which is denied to us. Those of us whom experience has tested know this, but this realization cannot yet have come to you." Patricia sighed, deeply, "Oh, yes, mamma Eleanor; this waiting is awful." "You mean that we must accept the situation as best we may and accomplish our results by proxy?" Alice queried, still rebellious.