"Kiss me, dear," she whispered. "I am not really so worldly as you
think."
"You are an angel, and will never be anything else to me," I responded,
stroking her hair.
She lay still for a moment, happy but pensive. "She shall do whatever
she pleases; only it is a very much easier matter for you to be
virtuous and to say, 'Let her study medicine,' than for me."
"I have not said so, dearest."
"You have thought so, though. You do not need to speak to have me know
when you are thinking things. No man can possibly conceive what it
means to a mother to have a daughter a radiant beauty and peculiar."
"I dare say not," I murmured, humbly.
"Especially," she continued, reflectively, "when you consider that,
though society is foolish, there is really nothing else at present to
take its place to give a girl what nothing else is likely to give
her--I do not say nothing else can give it to her, but nothing else is
in the least likely to; and when you consider the vast number of wives
and mothers who have been through it all when they were young, and are
charming and--yes, Fred, sensible, intelligent women to-day. I don't
pretend that I myself am half what I might have been, but I went
through it all as a girl without becoming absolutely vapid and
volatile. Didn't I, dear?"
"You certainly did, Josephine.
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