“I thank you, George,” said Aunt Dorothy.  “The task has been painful to me.”

Dorothy went to her father and kissed him again, and Sir George departed.

When the door was closed, Lady Crawford breathed a great sigh and said:  “I thank Heaven, Dorothy, he does not know that you have been out of your room.  How could you treat me so cruelly?  How could you deceive me?”

“That, Aunt Dorothy,” replied the niece, “is because you are not old enough yet to be a match for a girl who is—­who is in love.”

“Shame upon you, Dorothy!” said Lady Crawford.  “Shame upon you, to act as you did, and now to speak so plainly about being in love!  Malcolm said you were not a modest girl, and I am beginning to believe him.”

“Did Malcolm speak so ill of me?” asked Dorothy, turning toward me with a smile in her eyes.

“My lady aunt,” said I, turning to Lady Crawford, “when did I say that Dorothy was an immodest girl?”

“You did not say it,” the old lady admitted.  “Dorothy herself said it, and she proves her words to be true by speaking so boldly of her feelings toward this—­this strange man.  And she speaks before Madge, too.”

“Perhaps Madge is in the same sort of trouble.  Who knows?” cried Dorothy, laughing heartily.  Madge blushed painfully.  “But,” continued Dorothy, seriously, “I am not ashamed of it; I am proud of it.  For what else, my dear aunt, was I created but to be in love?  Tell me, dear aunt, for what else was I created?”

“Perhaps you are right,” returned the old lady, who in fact was sentimentally inclined.

“The chief end of woman, after all, is to love,” said Dorothy.  “What would become of the human race if it were not?”

“Child, child,” cried the aunt, “where learned you such things?”

“They were written upon my mother’s breast,” continued Dorothy, “and I learned them when I took in my life with her milk.  I pray they may be written upon my breast some day, if God in His goodness shall ever bless me with a baby girl.  A man child could not read the words.”

“Dorothy, Dorothy!” cried Lady Crawford, “you shock me.  You pain me.”

“Again I ask,” responded Dorothy, “for what else was I created?  I tell you, Aunt Dorothy, the world decrees that women shall remain in ignorance, or in pretended ignorance—­in silence at least—­regarding the things concerning which they have the greatest need to be wise and talkative.”

“At your age, Dorothy, I did not have half your wisdom on the subject,” answered Lady Crawford.

“Tell me, my sweet Aunt Dorothy, were you really in a state of ignorance such as you would have me believe?”

“Well,” responded the old lady, hesitatingly, “I did not speak of such matters.”

“Why, aunt, did you not?” asked Dorothy.  “Were you ashamed of what God had done?  Were you ashamed of His great purpose in creating you a woman, and in creating your mother and your mother’s mother before you?”