try and persuade her all I can that she is; but it seems as if she didn't
want to be persuaded; and when I ask her if Lady So-and-so is of the same
opinion (that Miss Vane isn't her equal), she looks so soft and pretty
with her eyes, and says, "Of course she is!" When I tell her that this
is right down bad for Lady So-and-so, it seems as if she wouldn't believe
me, and the only answer she will make is that Lady So-and-so is
"extremely nice." I don't believe she is nice at all; if she were nice,
she wouldn't have such ideas as that. I tell Miss Vane that at Bangor we
think such ideas vulgar; but then she looks as though she had never heard
of Bangor. I often want to shake her, though she _is_ so sweet. If she
isn't angry with the people who make her feel that way, I am angry for
her. I am angry with her brother too, for she is evidently very much
afraid of him, and this gives me some further insight into the subject.
She thinks everything of her brother, and thinks it natural that she
should be afraid of him, not only physically (for this _is_ natural, as
he is enormously tall and strong, and has very big fists), but morally
and intellectually. She seems unable, however, to take in any argument,
and she makes me realise what I have often heard--that if you are timid
nothing will reason you out of it.

Mr. Vane, also (the brother), seems to have the same prejudices, and when
I tell him, as I often think it right to do, that his sister is not his
subordinate, even if she does think so, but his equal, and, perhaps in
some respects his superior, and that if my brother, in Bangor, were to
treat me as he treates this poor young girl, who has not spirit enough to
see the question in its true light, there would be an indignation,
meeting of the citizens to protest against such an outrage to the
sanctity of womanhood--when I tell him all this, at breakfast or dinner,
he bursts out laughing so loud that all the plates clatter on the table.

But at such a time as this there is always one person who seems
interested in what I say--a German gentleman, a professor, who sits next
to me at dinner, and whom I must tell you more about another time. He is
very learned, and has a great desire for information; he appreciates a
great many of my remarks, and after dinner, in the salon, he often comes
to me to ask me questions about them. I have to think a little,
sometimes, to know what I did say, or what I do think. He takes you
rig