“They’ll like it when they see the baby getting some flesh on its bones,” insisted Mrs. Dennison.  “There’s more than one kind of a fight a mother has to put up for her children.  They used to think it fine for a woman to kill herself for her children, but I don’t think it’s so much the fashion now.  As you say, a mother has no business to die; it’s the part of intelligence to live.  So you just have a set-to with your old-fashioned mother-in-law if it’s necessary.”

“Yes,” put in Kate, “the new generation always has to fight the old in the interests of progress.”

Marna broke into a rippling laugh.

“That’s her best platform manner,” she cried.  “Just think, Mrs. Finn, my friend talks on suffrage.”

“Oh!” gasped the little Irishwoman, involuntarily putting out her hands as if she would snatch her infant from such a contaminating hold.

But Kate drew back smilingly.

“Yes,” she said significantly, “I believe in woman’s rights.”

She held on to the baby, and Mrs. Dennison, putting on her hat and coat, went in search of a nursing-bottle.

On the way home, Mrs. Dennison, who was of the last generation, and Kate, who was of the present one, talked the matter over.

“She didn’t seem to understand that she had been talking ’woman’s rights,’” mused Kate, referring to Mrs. Finn.  “The word frightened the poor dear.  She didn’t see that fatal last word of her ’love, honor, and obey’ had her where she might even have to give her life in keeping her word.”

“Well, for my part,” said Mrs. Dennison, in her mellow, flowing tones, “I always found it a pleasure to obey my husband.  But, then, to be sure, I don’t know that he ever asked anything inconsiderate of me.”

“You were a well-shielded woman, weren’t you?” asked Kate.

“I didn’t need to lift my hand unless I wished,” said Mrs. Dennison in reminiscence.

“And you had no children—­”

“But that was a great sorrow.”

“Yes, but it wasn’t a living vexation and drain.  It didn’t use up your vitality and suck up your brain power and make a slattern and a drudge of you as having five children in seven years has of little Mrs. Finn.  It’s all very well to talk of obeying when you aren’t asked to obey—­or, at least, when you aren’t required to do anything difficult.  But good Tim Finn, I’ll warrant, tells his Mary when she may go and where, and he’d be in a fury if she went somewhere against his desire.  Oh, she’s playing the old medieval game, you can see that!”

“Dear Kate,” sighed Mrs. Dennison, “sometimes your expressions seem to me quite out of taste.  I do hope you won’t mind my saying so.  You’re so very emphatic.”

“I don’t mind a bit, Mrs. Dennison.  I dare say I am getting to be rather violent and careless in my way of talking.  It’s a reaction from the vagueness and prettiness of speech I used to hear down in Silvertree, where they begin their remarks with an ‘I’m not sure, but I think,’ et cetera.  But, really, you must overlook my vehemence.  If I could spend my time with sweet souls like you, I’d be a different sort of woman.”