looked meditative.

"Harold Wilkins has a practical mind," she observed. "After all, he is
right, when you come to consider it."

"_Hadria!_" remonstrated her sister, in dismay.

"We may as well be candid," said Hadria. "There _is_ uncommonly little
that a girl can do (or rather that people will let her do) unless she
marries, and that is why she so often does marry as a mere matter of
business. But I wish Harold Wilkins would remember that fact, instead of
insisting that it is our inherent and particular nature that urges us,
one and all, to the career of Mrs. Gordon."

Algitha was obviously growing more and more ruffled. Fred tried in vain
to soothe her feelings. He joked, but she refused to see the point. She
would not admit that Harold Wilkins had facts on his side.

"If one simply made up one's mind to walk through all the hampering
circumstances, who or what could stop one?" she asked.

"Algitha has evidently got some desperate plan in her head for making
mincemeat of circumstances," cried Fred, little guessing that he had
stated the exact truth.

"Do you remember that Mrs. Gordon herself waged a losing battle in early
days, incredible as it may appear?" asked Hadria.

Algitha nodded slowly, her eyes fixed on the ground.

"She did not originally set out with the idea of being a sort of amiable
cow. She once aspired to be quite human; she really did, poor thing!"

"Then why didn't she do it?" asked Algitha contemptuously.

"Instead of _doing_ a thing, she had to be perpetually struggling for
the chance to do it, which she never achieved, and so she was submerged.
That seems to be the fatality in a woman's life."

"Well, there is one thing I am very sure of," announced Algitha, leaning
majestically against a column of the temple, and looking like a
beautiful Greek maiden, in her simple gown, "I do not intend to be a
cow. I do not mean to fight a losing battle. I will not wait at home
meekly, till some fool holds out his sceptre to me."

All eyes turned to her, in astonishment.

"But what are you going to do?" asked a chorus of voices. Hadria's was
not among them, for she knew what was coming. The debate of last night,
and this morning's discussion, had evidently brought to a climax a
project that Algitha had long had in her mind, but had hesitated to
carry out, on account of the distress that it would cause to her mother.
Algitha's eyes glittered, and her colour rose.

"I am not going to be hawked a