She had
been brought up in a small old-fashioned way, by her foolish little
mother, and by a father--a stupid, honourable, affectionate man--whom
she had loved with a half-tender, half-rebellious affection. There had
been no education to speak of, for either her or Susy. But the qualities
and gifts of remoter ancestors had appeared in them--to the bewilderment
of their parents. And when after her father's death Lydia, at nineteen,
had insisted on entering the Slade School, she had passed through some
years of rapid development. At bottom her temperament always remained, on
the whole, conservative and critical; the temperament of the humourist,
in whose heart the old loyalties still lie warm. But that remarkable
change in the whole position and outlook of women which has marked the
last half century naturally worked upon her as upon others. For such
persons as Lydia it has added dignity and joy to a woman's life, without
the fever and disorganization which attend its extremer forms. While
Susy, attending lectures at University College, became a Suffragist,
Lydia, absorbed in the pleasures and pains of her artistic training,
looked upon the suffrage as a mere dusty matter of political machinery.
But the ideas of her student years--those "ideas" which Tatham felt so
much in his way--were still dominant. Marriage was not necessary. Art and
knowledge could very well suffice. On the whole, in her own case, she
aspired to make them suffice.
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