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Rh had no connection with, nor relation to, the matter of her speech or her state of feeling; it was what a watchmaker would call a detached movement. "I can’t see," said she, "that it is my duty to send Lisa away to be taught, just when I need her most. My development is a good deal more important than hers."

"Why?"

"Why? Because I have a vocation and a mission; because, if I should falter or faint by the wayside, hundreds of women who depend on me for inspiration would fall back into error and suffer permanent loss and injury."

"Do you suppose they really would?" asked Mary rather maliciously, anxious if possible to ruffle the surface of Mrs. Grubb’s exasperating placidity. "Or would they, of course after a long period of grief-stricken apathy, attach themselves to somebody else’s classes?"

"They might," allowed Mrs. Grubb, in a tone of hurt self-respect; "though you must know, little as you’ve seen of the world, that no woman has just the same revelation as any other, and that there are some who are born to interpret truth to the