You are not a child now. We give
you freedom--more freedom than most girls get--because we think you
will use it wisely. You knew--enough to know that there was likely to be
trouble."
The girl looked into the fire and spoke very carefully. "I don't think
that I oughtn't to know the things that are going on."
The bishop studied her face for an instant. It struck him that they
had reached something very fundamental as between parent and child. His
modernity showed itself in the temperance of his reply.
"Don't you think, my dear, that on the whole your mother and I, who have
lived longer and know more, are more likely to know when it is best that
you should begin to know--this or that?"
The girl knitted her brows and seemed to be reading her answer out of
the depths of the coals. She was on the verge of speaking, altered her
mind and tried a different beginning.
"I think that every one must do their thinking--his
thinking--for--oneself," she said awkwardly.
"You mean you can't trust--?"
"It isn't trusting. But one knows best for oneself when one is hungry."
"And you find yourself hungry?"
"I want to find out for myself what all this trouble about votes and
things means.
Pages:
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63