"I know you did, and rightly, and you may take comfort in the thought that it will, after all, have been through you that Celia is to have the opportunities she needs. She is to come to me, to live with me for a time, till, as she expresses it, she can `test' herself. That is to say, dear Winifred, she can _now_ do so. Had you held out, she would never have consented to leave home." Through Winifred's flushed and tear-stained face her blue eyes looked up at Hertha with perplexity. "I don't think I yet quite understand your point of view," she said. "Tell me, is it because you think Celia has special gifts, or that I have special calls, that you advise us so differently?" "Both," Miss Norreys replied. "But supposing I had had her gifts as well as my calls, what then?" Hertha hesitated. "I cannot really say," she replied. "It would have been more difficult to decide. At least, it _seems_ as if it would have been so. But imaginary positions are not what we have to deal with. And when there are what appear to be almost equally balanced claims upon us, as _sometimes_, though not often, occurs, well, perhaps in such a case it does not matter so very much, in the highest sense of all, _which_ path we take if we do it heartily and conscientiously. You would not have been left in doubt long, I feel sure, if such had been your case." "And it is _not_, so we need not trouble about it," said Winifred, practically. "But one thing more, as we have come upon this. Do you think all girls who are not literally forced to earn their bread should stay at home and lead the old routine humdrum lives--I mean, of course, those who have no great or special gifts? Have you no sympathy with all the feeling of the day about women?" "The very greatest and deepest," said Hertha. "But it is an immense subject, and cannot be treated in wholesale fashion. Individual lives differ so tremendously. All I can say about it roughly is that love of excitement and change and novelty should not be mistaken for real, deliberate desire to make the best and the most of the powers we have. And it should never be forgotten that `home' is the place we are born into--in a very special sense woman's own kingdom. Outside interests should radiate from and revolve round home--that is the ideal. When home _has_ to be given up, it should be done regretfully, as a sad necessity, whereas the wish to escape from it is, I fear, in many cases nowadays, the great motive." "But girls are not alone to blame for that," said Winifred. "Think what some parents are: tyrannical and selfish, scarcely allowing a daughter to have a mind or a soul of her own." "I know that some are like that," said Hertha.