The little girl fluttered irresolutely.  “Fly away, dear!” Peachy repeated.  Angela mounted a breeze and made off, whirling, circling, dipping, and soaring, in the direction of the water.  Once or twice, she paused, dropped and, bounding from earth to air, turned her frightened eyes back to her mother’s face.  But each time, Peachy waved her on.  Angela joined Honey-Boy and Peterkin.  For a moment she poised in the air; then she sank and began languidly to dig in the sand.

“I couldn’t let her hear it,” Peachy said.  “It’s about her.  Ralph — .”  She lost control of herself for a moment; and now her sobs had voice.  “I asked him last night about Angela and her flying.  I don’t exactly know why I did.  It was something you said to me yesterday, Julia, that put it into my head.  He said that when she was eighteen, he was going to cut her wings just as he cut mine.”

There came clamor from her listeners.  “Cut Angela’s wings!” “Why?” “What for?”

Peachy shook her head.  “I don’t know yet why, although he tried all night, to make me understand.  He said that he was going to cut them for the same reason that he cut mine.  He said that it was all right for her to fly now when she was a baby and later when she was a very young girl, that it was ‘girlish’ and ‘beautiful’ and ‘lovely’ and ‘charming’ and ‘fascinating’ and — and — a lot of things.  He said that he could not possibly let her fly when she became a woman, that then it would be ‘unwomanly’ and ‘unlovely’ and ‘uncharming’ and ‘unfascinating.’  He said that even if he were weak enough to allow it, her husband never would.  I could not understand his argument.  I could not.  It was as if we were talking two languages.  Besides, I could scarcely talk, I cried so.  I’ve cried for hours and hours and hours.”

“Sit down, Peachy,” Julia advised gently.  “Let us all sit down.”  The women sank to their couches.  But they did not lounge; they continued to sit rigidly upright.  “What are you going to do, Peachy?”

“I don’t know.  But I’ll throw myself into the ocean with Angela in my arms before I’ll consent to have her wings cut.  Why, the things he said.  Lulu, he said that Angela might marry Honey-Boy, as they were the nearest of age.  He said that Honey-Boy would certainly cut her wings, that he, no more than Honey, could endure a wife who flew.  He said that all earth-men were like that.  Lulu, would you let your child do — do — that to my child?”

Lulu’s face had changed — almost horribly.  Her eyes glittered between narrowed lids.  Her lips had pulled away from each other, baring her teeth.  “You tell Ralph he’s mistaken about my son,” she ground out.