ed irresolutely, and they walked
together down the plank pathway, Kitty with an oppressive sense of
having fallen into the clutch of one of the Primal Forces, who was
about to settle her destiny for her; in which she stumbled almost on
the truth. Miss Muller was quite aware of the fact of her brother's
visits at the book-shop, and their motive. She glanced at her watch:
she could give herself half an hour to find out what stuff was in the
girl, though it hardly needed so long. "A good type of the Domestic
Woman in the raw state," she thought. (She always jotted down her
thoughts sharply to herself, as a busy shopkeeper makes entries in his
day-book.) "Pulpy, kissable. A vine to which poor William would appear
an oak. A devoted wife, and, if he died, a gay widow, ready to be a
fond wife to somebody else."

"What do you mean to make of yourself, Miss Vogdes?" she snapped
suddenly, just as Kitty was counting the hen-coops of the society in
the field they were passing, and wondering how she could contrive to
get a pair of their Cochin Chinas.

"To make?" stammered Kitty ("I knew she would take me by the throat
somehow," she thought)--"of myself?--Why, I am Peter Guinness's
daughter."

"You poor child!" Miss Muller laughed. It was a very merry, infectious
laugh. She laid her hand on Kitty's shoulder gently, as though she
had been a helpless kitten. "Now you see how our social system works,
William. Ask a boy that question, and his answer comes pat--a doctor,
carpenter, what not. In any case, he has a career, an independent soul
and identity. This poor girl is--Peter Guinness's daughter, is content
to be that. Though perhaps," turning sharply on her, "she thinks of
the day when she will be the wife of somebody, the mother of children.
Those, two ideas are enough to fill the brains of most women."

Mr. Muller colored, and smiled significantly to himself. Catharine
looked at her with a grave suspense, but made no answer.

"Yes," Miss Muller went on, a certain heat coming into her delicate
face, "that contents the most of them--to be the fool or slave of a
lover or a husband or son. 'The perfume and suppliance of a minute--no
more but that.'"

She walked on in silence after this, and Catharine scanned her
quietly. She was not at all the mad woman Mrs. Guinness had always
described her--not at all what Kitty had fancied a lecturer on woman
suffrage, a manager of the Water-cure and a skillful operating surgeon
must be. She