"Equal rights, the ballot,
and all that."
"Oh! Don't!" she protested. "You won't understand me; you can't. I
am no woman's rights' creature; and I stand, not for the new woman, but
for the new womanhood. Because I am sincere; because I desire to be
natural, and honest, and true; and because I am consistent with myself,
you choose to misunderstand it all and to lay wrong strictures upon me.
I do try to be consistent, and I think I fairly succeed; but you can
see neither rhyme nor reason in my consistency. Perhaps it is because
you are unused to consistent, natural women; because, more likely, you
are only familiar with the hot-house breeds,--pretty, helpless,
well-rounded, stall-fatted little things, blissfully innocent and
criminally ignorant. They are not natural or strong; nor can they
mother the natural and strong."
She stopped abruptly. They heard somebody enter the hall, and a heavy,
soft-moccasined tread approaching.
"We are friends," she added hurriedly, and Corliss answered with his
eyes.
"Ain't intrudin', am I?" Dave Harney grinned broad insinuation and
looked about ponderously before coming up to shake hands.
"Not at all," Corliss answered. "We've bored each other till we were
pining for some one to come along. If you hadn't, we would soon have
been quarrelling, wouldn't we, Miss Welse?"
"I don't think he states the situation fairly," she smiled back.
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