full of thoughts and intentions as ungraspable and spacious as the Milky
Way. She was not quite sure, up there with the winds lashing her face
with her hair, whether she was going to save the world from whisky,
materialism or dreams; she was not quite sure whether she was going to
save women from having smaller brains and weaker bodies than men, or
whether she was going to train herself out of being a woman. At any
rate, she was going out on the battle-path, glittering in armour. As
long as her eyes were on the stars and her hair streaming in the wind it
did not seem to matter much where her feet were. They would, she felt
sure, follow her eyes.

And then Aunt Janet announced, at the end of two days, that she should
write to Australia, to a brother of Rose Lashcairn's who lived in
Victoria on a big sheep run. He had written at Rose's death, offering to
have the child--one little girl more or less on his many acres would not
count. But Andrew had refused stiffly, insolently, and there the matter
had dropped. Now Aunt Janet sat down, and, quite characteristically
bridging six years of silence and rather rude neglect, stated that
Andrew was dead, the farm was not prospering, and she was sending
Marcella out to him, as he had expressed a wish for her before. She did
not ask if this would be convenient. It did not occur to her that Uncle
Philip might be dead, or have left Wooratonga; with Lashcairn
high-handedness--to quote Wullie--she expected all the world to
do her bidding.

She did not mention the letter to Marcella until it was written; she
lived so much inside her wall that the interest the letter must
necessarily have for the girl did not occur to her until she called
her downstairs and put it into her hand.