Vaguely--and in this she mirrored thousands of other mothers--there was
a hope in her heart that Elise would grow up pretty, virtuous, amiable,
and would eventually marry well. It did not concern her that the girl
was permeated with individuality, that the temperament of an artist lay
behind the changing eyes in that restless, graceful figure. She could
not see that her daughter had a delicate, wilful personality, which
would rebel increasingly against the monotony of a social regime that
planned the careers of its sons before they were born, and offered its
daughters a mere incoherency of good intentions.

Full of the swift imaginativeness which makes the feminine contribution
to life so much a thing of charm and colour, Elise pursued the paths
which Youth has for its own--those wonderful streets of fantasy that
end with adolescence in Society's ugly fields of sign-posts.

Lacking the companionship of others of a similar age, she wove her own
conception of life, and dreamed of a world actuated by quick and
generous emotions. With every pulsing beat of the warm blood coursing
through her veins she demanded in her girl's mind that the world in
which her many-sided self had been placed should yield the wines to
satisfy the subtle shades of thirst produced by her insistent
individuality.

And the world offered her sign-posts. This must you do and thus must
you talk; hither shall you go and here remain: these are the Arts with
which you may enjoy a very slight acquaintance, but do not aspire to
genuine accomplishment--leave that to common people; be lady-like, be
calm and reserved; behold your brothers, how they swank!--but they are
men, and this is England; desire nought but the protected privileges of