"And they tell me," he said in
a slow voice, "you're the Dean of Dunwich's daughter!"

Herminia laughed lightly,--a ringing girlish laugh. Alan noticed
it with pleasure. He felt at once that the iron of Girton had not
entered into her soul, as into so many of our modern young women's.
There was vitality enough left in her for a genuine laugh of
innocent amusement. "Oh yes," she said, merrily; "that's what I
always answer to all possible objectors to my ways and ideas. I
reply with dignity, '_I_ was brought up in the family of a
clergyman of the Church of England.'"

"And what does the Dean say to your views?" Alan interposed
doubtfully.

Herminia laughed again. If her eyes were profound, two dimples
saved her. "I thought you were with us," she answered with a
twinkle; "now, I begin to doubt it. You don't expect a man of
twenty-two to be governed in all things, especially in the
formation of his abstract ideas, by his father's opinions. Why
then a woman?"

"Why, indeed?" Alan answered. "There I quite agree with you. I
was thinking not so much of what is right and reasonable as of what
is practical and usual. For most women, of course, are--well, more
or less dependent upon their fathers."

"But I am not," Herminia answered, with a faint suspicion of just
pride in the undercurrent of her tone. "That's in part why I went
away so soon from Girton. I felt that if women are ever to be
free, they must first of all be independent. It is the dependence
of women that has allowed men to make laws for them, socially and
ethically. So I wouldn't stop at Girton, partly because I felt the
life was one-sided,--our girls thought and talked of nothing else
on earth except Herodotus, trigonometry, and the higher culture,--but
partly also because I wouldn't be dependent on any man, not
even my own father. It left me freer to act and think as I would.
So I threw Girton overboard, and came up to live in London."

"I see," Alan replied. "You wouldn't let your schooling interfere
with your education. And now you support yourself?" he went on
quite frankly.

Herminia nodded assent.

"Yes, I support myself," she answered; "in part by teaching at a
high school for girls, and in part by doing a little hack-work for
newspapers."

"Then you're just down here for your holidays, I suppose?" Alan put
in, leaning forward.

"Yes, just down here for my holidays. I've lodgings on the
Holmwood, in such a dear old thatched