“If you are ambitious, you have but to wait until the leading spirit comes.  What a help you would be to him!”

“He might never come, or I might not know him when—­”

“Or you would not love him, if you did know him.”

“He might not love me; or, if he did, I might drive him away.  But that is not what was in my mind, although a woman must be ambitious through another.  To be one of these young men, to know their minds, to feel their hopes and ambitions, and struggle with and against them, for the places, the honors and leaderships!”

“And would you never love and wed, woo and marry?”

“Yes; and I would like to see the woman who would scorn me.  I would take her as mine, and she should not choose but love me!”

“Why, Julia! who would think that you, sweet and deep as you are, could say such things!  Would you like to be wooed in that way?”

“I never came to that.  I am only a woman without aim in life.  I am only to float along between flowery banks, until somebody fishes me out, I suppose!”

“I am sure, were I you, I could well float on until the right man came; and you, Julia, it is your own fault if you do not marry for love.  You will not be obliged to consult anything else.”

“And you?” said Julia, laughing.

“I? oh!  I am dependent on my brother, you know.”

“Yes, and there comes in the hardship; were you a man, you could go out and make and choose.  Now, a daughter remains where her father and mother leave her.  The sons may rise, the daughters stay below, and if sought for, it is usually in the same channels in which the parents move, and that is the hardship of those who, unlike you, are on a lower plane, or who, like you, have no father and mother to sustain them in their proper place.  If you could win wealth, you would only marry for love; and I am sure you will do so now.”

“A woman who wins fortune usually loses the capacity to win love, I fear,” said Flora.

“And the woman who wins nothing deserves nothing,” said Julia.  “I am a little like my mother, I presume; but who would win you, and how, I wonder?”

“Oh,” answered Flora, “I suppose the man who really and truly loved me.  I would like to have him come, as the breeze comes, with the odor of flowers, as the spring comes, with music and song, with all sweet and gentle influences, with beauty and grace; but he must not be effeminate.”

“He would have to be a good waltzer, I presume?”

“Would that be an objection?” asked Flora.

“No; but a man who excels in these light accomplishments may fail in the stronger qualities.  I admit that beauty and grace would go a great way, if one could have them also.”

“Julia, were I you, I would have them all.”

“Girls, what are you loitering along there for?  Talking over the young lawyers, I’ll bet; who takes which?” called back Kate, impetuously; “I don’t want either.”