15 she could not bring herself to enter, but took another turn or two round the Crescent, trying to be quite sure of her own mind before she opened the matter to her sisters .-- And there was one little battle to be fought which the sisters did know.
It was perhaps foolish, seeing she did not belong to him in any open way, and he had no external right over her life or her actions, that she should go back and back to the question, "What would Robert Lyon say ?" He knew she earned her daily bread; sometimes this had seemed to vex and annoy him, but it must be done; and when a thing was inevitable, it was not Mr.Lyon's way to say much about it.

But being a governess was an accredited and customary mode of a young lady's earning her livelihood.

This was different.

If he should think it too public, too unfeminine: he had such a horror of a woman's being any thing but a woman, as strong and brave as she could, but in a womanly way; doing any thing, however painful, that she was obliged to do, but never out of choice or bravado, or the excitement of stepping out of her own sphere into man's.

Would Robert Lyon think less of her, Hilary, because she had to earn to take care of herself, to protect herself, and to act in so many ways for herself, contrary to the natural and right order of things?
That old order--God forbid it should ever change!--which ordained that the women should be "keepers at home;" happy rulers of that happy little world, which seemed as far off as the next world from this poor Hilary.
"What if he should look down upon me?
What if he should return and find me different from what he expected ?" And bitter tears burned in her eyes, as she walked rapidly and passionately along the deserted street.