‘As to the woodman’s axe, Wally, it is very well in theory; but—­’

’Things good in theory, Caroline, will be good also when practised.  You may be sure of that.  We dislike theory simply because our intelligences are higher than our wills.  But we will let that pass.’

’Pray let it pass, Wally.  Do not preach me sermons tonight.  I am so happy, and you ought to wish me joy.’

’If wishing you joy would get you joy, I would wish it you while I lived.  I cannot be happy that you should be taken from us whither I shall never see you again.’

‘But you are to come to us.  I have told him so, and it is settled.’

’No, dear; I shall not do that.  What should I be in the glittering halls of an English baron?  Could there be any visiting less fitting, any admixture less appropriate?  Could I who have held up my voice in the Music Hall of Lacedaemon amidst the glories of the West, in the great and free State of Illinois, against the corruption of an English aristocracy, could I, who have been listened to by two thousand of my countrywomen and men while I spurned the unmanly, inhuman errors of primogeniture, could I, think you, hold my tongue beneath the roof of a feudal lord!’ Caroline Spalding knew that her friend could not hold her tongue, and hesitated to answer.  There had been that fatal triumph of a lecture on the joint rights of men and women, and it had rendered poor Wallachia Petrie unfit for ordinary society.

‘You might come there without talking politics, Wally,’ said Caroline.

’No, Caroline; no.  I will go into the house of no man in which the free expression of my opinion is debarred me.  I will not sit even at your table with a muzzled tongue.  When you are gone, Caroline, I shall devote myself to what, after all, must be the work of my life, and I shall finish the biographical history of our great hero in verse which I hope may at least be not ephemeral.  From month to month I shall send you what I do, and you will not refuse me your friendly criticism and, perhaps, some slight meed of approbation because you are dwelling beneath the shade of a throne.  Oh, Caroline, let it not be a upas tree!’

The Miss Petries of the world have this advantage, an advantage which rarely if ever falls to the lot of a man, that they are never convinced of error.  Men, let them be ever so much devoted to their closets, let them keep their work ever so closely veiled from public scrutiny, still find themselves subjected to criticism, and under the necessity of either defending themselves or of succumbing.  If, indeed, a man neither speaks, nor writes, if he be dumb as regards opinion, he passes simply as one of the crowd, and is in the way neither of convincing nor of being convinced; but a woman may speak, and almost write, as she likes, without danger of being wounded by sustained conflict.  Who would have the courage to begin with such a one as Miss Petrie, and endeavour to prove to her that