“Why, Mr. Winthrop, what do you mean?” I asked, surprised at the sudden turn of the conversation.

“What do I mean?  You have begun it already.  I only stipulate that you carry this crusade no farther.”

“But I do not understand you.  How then can I promise to obey your will?”

“The fashion is rapidly gaining ground for women to have some pet scheme of reform.  A few of them have such ambition for publicity they take their pet scheme, and the platform, and go trailing over the land like comets.  Now I do not wish you to join this motley crowd, though your heart does burn over the unacknowledged perfections of the poor.”

“Surely, Mr. Winthrop, you do not insinuate there is the remotest possibility of such a thing, that I will go to lecturing,” I said, with rising color.

“Have you not already begun the work?  But I shall be very glad to have your promise that you will not seek a larger audience to listen to you than your present one.”

“Are you in earnest?”

“I am certainly in earnest when I assure you it is my desire that you will not take up lecturing, or develop into a woman with a career.”

I looked at him closely, and turning away, said, “Some day I hope to get wise enough to know when you are in earnest and when you are merely bantering me.”

“I think your faculties in that respect are rapidly developing.  You discovered before I did that it was merely badinage on Mr. Winthrop’s part,” Mrs. Flaxman said, genially.

“But, Mr. Winthrop,” I said, turning to him once more, “is it right for you to judge those women so harshly who seize any honest way to get a hearing?  I believe the majority of them are as much in earnest about their work as you are in any of your most cherished undertakings.  Women more than men have an instinct to sacrifice themselves on the first genuine altar they meet with.  One human being, especially, if he is apt to be cynical, can scarcely judge another justly.”

“Are you not a little severe on me? but possibly you are correct,” he said, with perfect good humor.

“I hope you will forgive me that unkind remark,” I pleaded.  “I am afraid, after all, it is no use for me to try to be good thoroughly and wholly.  I can only be so in places.”

“You must not despair yet.  Much worse persons than you have developed into saints ultimately, if we can trust the calendar.”

I smiled, although discomfited.  “I wish you would try to be good with me.  I am sure I would find it easier.”

“Goodness too easily acquired is not apt to be of a very high quality.  Better fight your own battles and gain your victories all by yourself,” he said, with a smile as he left us for his study.  My head was aching so severely that I concluded to try the effect of rest and sleep, to bring back my usual freedom from pain.

CHAPTER XXVI.