| 151 | 152 | 153 | 154 | 155 |
| 1 | 170 | 341 | 511 | 681 |
|
series of human beings who don't advance any?"
Friend Eli, who had long ago laid aside the Quaker dress, and was out of
Meeting, and who in fact after a youth of doubt could not yet define his
belief, nevertheless looked with some wonder at this fierce young eagle
of his, hatched in a Friend's dove-cote. But he only said,
"
Has thee consulted thy mother about a career, I suppose it is a career
thee wants?"
Ruth did not reply directly; she complained that her mother didn't
understand her. But that wise and placid woman understood the sweet
rebel a great deal better than Ruth understood herself. She also had a
history, possibly, and had sometime beaten her young wings against the
cage of custom, and indulged in dreams of a new social order, and had
passed through that fiery period when it seems possible for one mind,
which has not yet tried its limits, to break up and re-arrange the world.
Ruth replied to Philip's letter in due time and in the most cordial and
unsentimental manner. Philip liked the letter, as he did everything she
did; but he had a dim notion that there was more about herself in the
letter than about him. He took it with him from the Southern Hotel, when
he went to walk, and read it over and again in an unfrequented street as
he stumbled along. The rather common-place and unformed hand-writing
seemed to him peculiar and characteristic, different from that of any
other woman.
153
Page
Quick Jump
|