"Do you suppose poor Mrs. Morley would seek to do that if she had her
rights?" asked Isaura, with her musical laugh.

"Not a doubt of it; but perhaps you share her opinions."

"I scarcely know what her opinions are, but--"

"Yes?--but--"

"There is a--what shall I call it?--a persuasion, a sentiment, out of
which the opinions probably spring, that I do share."

"Indeed? a persuasion, a sentiment, for instance, that a woman should
have votes in the choice of legislators, and, I presume, in the task of
legislation?"

"No, that is not what I mean. Still, that is an opinion, right or wrong,
which grows out of the sentiment I speak of."

"Pray explain the sentiment."

"It is always so difficult to define a sentiment; but does it not strike
you that in proportion as the tendency of modern civilization has been to
raise women more and more to an intellectual equality with men, in
proportion as they read and study and think, an uneasy sentiment, perhaps
querulous, perhaps unreasonable, grows up within their minds that the
conventions of the world are against the complete development of the
faculties thus aroused and the ambition thus animated; that they cannot
but rebel, though it may be silently, against the notions of the former
age, when women were not thus educated, notions that the aim of the sex