But," she murmured, "I should
still be a Christian Scientist. I could not help being one, you know."
If you ask me why I did not remand her to afternoon teas and the
mantua-makers, or advise her to allay her skipping spirit with some
cold drops of philanthropy, I fear that I could not give a very
satisfactory explanation. I am not, and I never shall be, a Christian
Scientist, notwithstanding my beauty of a daughter declares that she
can cure the proletariat of coughs, colics, and fevers simply by
thinking about them. It was Josephine, not I, who remarked, after the
matter was settled, and Winona had begun to keep office hours, that on
the whole it was less dreadful than if she had become an actress or
joined a settlement of the Toynbee Hall variety, for the reason that
she still remained at home, and we had not wholly lost our hold upon
her. Evidently Josephine regards her behavior as a passing phase which
will sooner or later wear off and leave her more like other people, and
she considers the actual practice of Christian Science rather less
demoralizing, from a conventional point of view, than some other forms
of revolt. I can see what she means. However honorable her
intentions, a woman who has knocked about on the stage for half a dozen
years is likely to have her perspective of life enlarged to such an
extent that she can behold without winking many things which are
carefully hidden from the general run of the sex, and the consequence
is that she is apt to refuse to wear blinders for the rest of her
existence.
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