Verena answered, somewhat impetuously, that she should be
delighted to visit Mrs. Burrage; then checked her impetuosity, after a
glance from Olive, by adding that perhaps this lady wouldn't ask her if
she knew what strong ground she took on the emancipation of women. Mrs.
Burrage looked at her son and laughed; she said she was perfectly aware
of Verena's views, and that it was impossible to be more in sympathy
with them than she herself. She took the greatest interest in the
emancipation of women; she thought there was so much to be done. These
were the only remarks that passed in reference to the great subject; and
nothing more was said to Verena, either by Henry Burrage or by his
friend Gracie, about her addressing the Harvard students. Verena had
told her father that Olive had put her veto upon that, and Tarrant had
said to the young men that it seemed as if Miss Chancellor was going to
put the thing through in her own way. We know that he thought this way
very circuitous; but Miss Chancellor made him feel that she was in
earnest, and that idea frightened the resistance out of him--it had such
terrible associations. The people he had ever seen who were most in
earnest were a committee of gentlemen who had investigated the phenomena
of the "materialisation" of spirits, some ten years before, and had bent
the fierce light of the scientific method upon him.
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