at least what Hen supposed she was talking about. It was as
if the cataclysm in the May-time had chipped a peep-hole in the
embracing sphere of her girlhood's round, and through this hole she
began to discern novel proceedings afoot....

Strange talk was in the air of the old town in those days, strange
things heard and seen. Not a few women of the happy classes had grown
"sick of parties." They grew sick of years lived without serious
purpose, waiting for husband and children which sometimes never came;
sick of their dependence, of their idleness, of their careful
segregation from the currents of life about them. They wearied, in
short, of their position of inferior human worth, which some perceived,
and others began dimly to suspect, under that glittering cover of
fictions which looked so wholly noble till you stopped to think (which
women should never do), and dared to glance sidewise at the seams
underneath. And now lately some high-hearted spirits had begun to voice
their sickness, courageously braving those penalties which society so
well knows how to visit upon those who disturb the accepted prejudices;
penalties, it might be, peculiarly trying to women, over which some of
these supposedly masculated pioneers doubtless had more than one good
cry in secret.

What could be more interesting than the revolt of woman against
"chivalry" in chivalry's old home and seat? That curious phenomenon was
going on in Cally's town now, though acuter social critics than she had
quite failed to discover it....

Far rumors of her sex's strange activities reached Cally, and she
listened, but with apathy. She marvelled at the freshness of interest
with which Mattie and Evey McVey were preparing for the light routine
which by now they knew like an old shoe. But her own mood was nothing
more forceful than meaningless restlessness and discontent. Not even the
unlooked-for arrival, one morning, of the dividend from the bank stock
her father had given her in May, all her own, afforded her more than a
flicker of the familiar joys. How employ fifteen hundred dollars so that
it would bring her happiness now? Cally, after listless deliberation,
took her wealth to her father that afternoon, offering it as a
contribution toward mamma's Settlement donation. Her impulse was hardly
sheer magnanimity; still, it was known that finance was a distinctly
live issue in the House just now.

However, papa, after staring at her a moment, merely gathere