Johnny's mother was a college graduate. She was
the president of the woman's club. She read papers
savoring of such feminine leaps ahead that they
were like gymnastics, but she walked homeward
with the gait of her great-grandmother, and inwardly
regarded her husband as her lord and master. She
minced genteelly, lifting her quite fashionable skirts
high above very slender ankles, which were heredi-
tary. Not a woman of her race had ever gone home
on thick ankles, and they had all gone home. They
had all been at home, even if abroad -- at home in
the truest sense. At the club, reading her inflam-
matory paper, Cora Trumbull's real self remained
at home intent upon her mending, her dusting, her
house economics. It was something remarkably
like her astral body which presided at the club.
As for her unmarried sister Janet, who was older
and had graduated from a young ladies' seminary
instead of a college, whose early fancy had been
guided into the lady-like ways of antimacassars and
pincushions and wax flowers under glass shades,
she was a straighter proposition. No astral pre-
tensions had Janet. She stayed, body and soul to-
gether, in the old ways, and did not even project
her shadow out of them. There is seldom room
enough for one's shadow in one's earliest way of
life, but there was plenty for Janet's.
Pages:
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53