"
Deriding! Pitying!
"I've no patience with the women of that clique you're so fond
of," the old lady went on. "If the ideas they profess--the shallow
frauds that they are!--were to prevail, what would become of women
of our station? Women should hold themselves dear, should
encourage men in that old-time reverence for the sex and its right
to be sheltered and worshiped and showered with luxury. As for
you--a poor girl--countenancing such low and ruinous views--Is it
strange I am disgusted with you? Have you no pride--no self-
respect?"
Margaret sat motionless, gazing into vacancy. She could not but
endorse every word her grandmother was saying. She had heard
practically those same words often, but they had had no effect;
now, toward the end of this her least successful season, with most
of her acquaintances married off, and enjoying and flaunting the
luxury she might have had--for, they had married men, of "the
right sort"--"capable husbands"--men who had been more or less
attentive to her--now, these grim and terrible axioms of worldly
wisdom, of upper class honor, from her grandmother sounded in her
ears like the boom of surf on reefs in the ears of the sailor.
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