life,
and to develop the girls' minds--in every proper direction. For, as to
training them for any path save those trodden by English ladies of the
familiar type, he could not have dreamt of any such thing. Dr. Madden's
hopes for the race were inseparable from a maintenance of morals and
conventions such as the average man assumes in his estimate of women.

The guest at table was a young girl named Rhoda Nunn. Tall, thin,
eager-looking, but with promise of bodily vigour, she was singled at a
glance as no member of the Madden family. Her immaturity (but fifteen,
she looked two years older) appeared in nervous restlessness, and in
her manner of speaking, childish at times in the hustling of
inconsequent thoughts, yet striving to imitate the talk of her seniors.
She had a good head, in both senses of the phrase; might or might not
develop a certain beauty, but would assuredly put forth the fruits of
intellect. Her mother, an invalid, was spending the summer months at
Clevedon, with Dr. Madden for medical adviser, and in this way the girl
became friendly with the Madden household. Its younger members she
treated rather condescendingly; childish things she had long ago put
away, and her sole pleasure was in intellectual talk. With a frankness
peculiar to her, indicative of pride, Miss Nunn let it be known that
she would have to earn her living, probably as a school teacher; study
for examinations occupied most of her day, and her hours of leisure
were frequently spent either at the Maddens or with a family named
Smithson--people, these latter, for whom she had a profound and
somewhat mysterious admiration. Mr. Smithson, a widower with a
consumptive daughter, was a harsh-featured, rough-voiced man of about
five-and-thirty, secretly much disliked by Dr. Madden because of his
aggressive radicalism; if women's observation could be trusted, Rhoda
Nunn had simply fallen in love with him, had made him, perhaps
unconsciously, the object of her earliest passion. Alice and Virginia
commented on the fact in their private colloquy with a shamefaced
amusement; they feared that it spoke ill for the young lady's breeding.
None the less they thought Rhoda a remarkable person, and listened to
her utterances respectfully.

'And what is your latest paradox, Miss Nunn?' inquired the doctor, with
grave facetiousness, when he had looked round the young faces at his
board.

'Really, I forget, doctor. Oh, but I wanted to ask you, Do you think
w