county.

"Aunt Isabelle," Mary said, suddenly, "is marriage the only way out for
a woman?"

"The only way?"

"To freedom. It seems to me that a single woman always seems to belong
to her family. Why shouldn't you do as you please? Why shouldn't I?
And yet you've never lived your own life. And I sha'n't be able to
live mine except by fighting every inch of the way."

A flush stained Aunt Isabelle's cheeks. "I have always been poor,
Mary----"

"But that isn't it," fiercely. "There are poor girls who aren't
tied--I mean by conventions and family traditions. Why, Aunt Isabelle,
I rented the Tower Rooms not only in defiance of the living--but of the
dead. I can see mother's face if we had thought of such a thing while
she lived. Yet we needed the money then. We needed it to help Dad--to
save him----" The last words were spoken under her breath, and Aunt
Isabelle did not catch them.

"And now everybody wants me to get married. Oh, Aunt Isabelle, sit
down and let's talk it out. I'm not sleepy, are you?" She drew the
little lady beside her on the high-backed couch which faced the fire.
"Everybody wants me to get married, Aunt Isabelle. And to-night I had
it out with--Porter."

"You don't love him?"