Tradition says 'Weep, this is the moment,' or
'Rejoice, the hour has come,' and we chant our dirge or kindle our
bonfires accordingly. Why, it means a little martyrdom to the occasional
sinner who selects his own occasion for sorrow or for joy."

Valeria laughed at the notion of Hadria's being under the dictatorship
of tradition, or of anything else, as to her emotions.

But Hadria held that everybody was more or less subject to the thraldom.
And the thraldom increased as the mind and the experience narrowed. And
as the narrowing process progressed, she said, the exhausting or vampire
quality grew and grew.

"I have seen it, I have seen it! Those who have been starved in life,
levy a sort of tax on the plenty of others, in the instinctive effort to
replenish their own empty treasure-house. Only that is impossible. One
can gain no riches in that fashion. One can only reduce one's victim to
a beggary like one's own."

Valeria was perturbed.

"The more I see of life, the more bitter a thing it seems to be a woman!
And one of the discouraging features of it is, that women are so ready
to oppress each other!"

"Because they have themselves suffered oppression," said the Professor.
"It is a law that we cannot evade; if we are injured, we pay back the
injury, whether we will or not, upon our neighbours. If we are blessed,
we bless, but if we are cursed, we curse."

"These moral laws, or laws of nature, or whatever one likes to call
them, seem to be stern as death!" exclaimed Valeria. "I suppose we are
all inheriting the curse that has been laid upon our mothers through so
many ages."

"We are not free from the shades of our grandmothers," said Hadria,
"only I hope a little (when I have not been to the Vicarage for some
time) that we may be less of a hindrance and an obsession to our
granddaughters than our grandmothers have been to us."

"Ah! that way lies hope!" cried the Professor.

"I wish, I _wish_ I could believe!" Valeria exclaimed. "But I was born
ten years too early for the faith of this generation."

"It is you who have helped to give this generation its faith," said
Hadria.

"But have you real hope and real faith, in your heart of hearts? Tell
me, Hadria."

Hadria looked startled.

"Ah! I knew it. Women _don't_ really believe that the cloud will lift.
If they really believed what they profess, they would prove it. They
would not submit and resign themselves. Oh, why don't you shew what a
woman can