This, in a word, is the spirit, the attitude of mind that is entering into the mental composition of women.  They are becoming conscious of their personality.  That phrase may be cryptic; without consideration it may convey but little; yet it sums up the whole movement, is the very moon itself to the turning tide.  The woman who once becomes conscious of her own personality is in a fair way towards her own enfranchisement.  Away go the fettering conventions of home life, the chains of social hypocrisy are flung aside.  She rides out into the open air like the bird from the shattered cage, and if man, the marksman, does not bring her to earth before her fluttering wings are fully spread, then she is off—­up into the deep, blue zenith of liberty!

“I’m no more selfish than you who expect me to spend the money on you; in fact, I’m less selfish.  It’s my money.”

In that definite assertion, Sally first expressed the realization of her own personality.  The girl of twenty years ago would have sacrificed her little dowry upon the family altar without a word; she would, without complaint, have allowed it to be spent upon her brother’s education.  But now we are dealing with modernity, and out of the quiet country lanes, from the sacred hearth of the peaceful home-circles, this army of women are rising.  Who has taught them?  No one knows.  Who has inspired them with the vitality of action?  No one can say.  The spirit of the hive is at work within them; already they are swarming in obedience to the silent command.  Pick out a hundred girls as they go to work in the city, and ask them why they are toiling from one day to another.  They will all—­or ninety-nine of them—­give you the same answer—­

“I didn’t want to stay at home.  I prefer to be independent.”

There lies the heart of it, the realization of the ego in the personality.

Sally had her own way.  In the face of abuse, in the face of reproach, she packed her leather trunk.  All those little idols of sentiment, the clock that ticked on her mantelshelf, the pictures that hung on the walls; the books she had collected, even the copy of Browning that she did not understand—­they all were stowed away into the leather trunk.  She went out of the house, she went out of the home as a moth flies out of a darkened room, and you know that unless you kindle a light to lure it back, it will never return.  They knew they could never kindle the light.  They knew she would never come back.  What love had they to offer as an inducement?  And no love of her relations is an inducement to the woman who is seeking her own.

Only the Rev. Samuel shed tears over her.  She came into his study one morning after breakfast to say good-bye.  He was writing a new sermon for the season of Easter, and his mind was raking up the past as a man unearths some buried thing that the mould has rotted.

The sunlight was pouring in through the window as he bent over his desk nursing thoughts that were vermin in his brain.