not offended her, said,

"How lovely Mrs. Morley is!"

"Yes; and I like the spirit and ease of her American manner. Have you
known her long, Mademoiselle?"

"No; we met her for the first time some weeks ago at M. Savarin's."

"Was she very eloquent on the rights of women?"

"What! you have heard her on that subject?"

"I have rarely heard her on any other, though she is the best and
perhaps the cleverest friend I have at Paris; but that may be my fault,
for I like to start it. It is a relief to the languid small-talk of
society to listen to any one thoroughly in earnest upon turning the
world topsy-turvy."

"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 should be to steal through life unremarked; that it is a
reproach to be talked of; that women are plants to be kept in a hothouse
and forbidden the frank liberty of growth in the natural air and
sunshine of heaven? This, at least, is a sentiment which has sprung up
within myself; and I imagine that it is the sentiment which has given
birth to many of the opinions or doctrines that seem absurd, and very
likely are so, to the general public. I don't pretend even to have
considered those doctrines; I don't pret