"But don't you think," the elder Miss Williams suggested timidly, "don't
you think, Mrs. Westmascott, that woman has a mission of her own?"

The lady of the house dropped her dumb-bells with a crash upon the
floor.

"The old cant!" she cried. "The old shibboleth! What is this mission
which is reserved for woman? All that is humble, that is mean, that is
soul-killing, that is so contemptible and so ill-paid that none other
will touch it. All that is woman's mission. And who imposed these
limitations upon her? Who cooped her up within this narrow sphere? Was
it Providence? Was it nature? No, it was the arch enemy. It was man."

"Oh, I say, auntie!" drawled her nephew.

"It was man, Charles. It was you and your fellows I say that woman is a
colossal monument to the selfishness of man. What is all this boasted
chivalry--these fine words and vague phrases? Where is it when we wish
to put it to the test? Man in the abstract will do anything to help a
woman. Of course. How does it work when his pocket is touched? Where
is his chivalry then? Will the doctors help her to qualify? will the
lawyers help her to be called to the bar? will the clergy tolerate her
in the Church? Oh, it is close your ranks then and refer poor woman to
her mission! Her mission! To be thankful for coppers and not to
interfere with the men while they grabble for gold, like swine round a
trough, that is man's reading of the mission of women. You may sit
there and sneer, Charles, while you look upon your victim, but you know
that it is truth, every word of it."

Terrified as they were by this sudden torrent of words, the two