ystem may be admirable, but for the
pursuit of a happy livelihood--"

I stopped. Aunt Matilda was looking at me as if I were suffering
from an attack of some kind. Marriage to her was the divinely
arranged destiny for a woman, and she had neither patience nor
sympathy with my refusal to accept the opportunity that was mine to
fulfil the destiny of my sex and at the same time become the wife of
the man she had long wished me to marry. The power of money was dear
to her. She understood it well, and my failure to appreciate it
properly was peculiarly exasperating to her. Discussion was useless.
It never got farther than where it started. If I said that which I
wanted much to say, it would merely mean hearing again what I did not
want to hear. Concerning the pursuit of a happy livelihood we were
not apt to agree.

For a half-minute longer I hesitated. Should I make the issue now or
wait until there had been time for her to realize I meant what I
said? Before I could speak she did that which I had never seen her
do before. She burst into tears.

"You must never mention such a thing as this again." Her words came
stumblingly and her usually firm and strong hands trembled badly.
"With my health in its present condition I couldn't get on without
you. You are all I have to really love, and I need you. Don't you
see what you have done? You have made me ill. Ill!"

She was strangely upset and in her eyes was a confused and frightened
look that was new to them, and quickly I went toward her, but she
motioned me away.

"Give me my medicine, and don't ever speak of such a thing
again--such a thing as you have just spoken of! You have always been
beyond my comprehension."

She swallowed the medicine I brought her in nervous gulps, the tears
running down her face as they might have done down a child's, but she
would not let me do anything for her, insisting only that she wanted
to be quiet. Seeing it was best to leave her, I went to my room and
locked the door, and for hours I fought the hardest fight of my life.

The one weapon she knew she could use effectively, she had used. If
she needed me I could not leave her, but her complete self-reliance
made it difficult to feel that any one was necessary to her. I was
indignant at the way she had treated me. I was not a child to be
disposed of, and yet of my future she was disposing as though it were
a thing that could be tied to a string, and untied at will. W