If she doesn't--" Edith gave a slight but emphatic wave of dismissal.
"Do you mean to say Laura told you that ?" her father asked with an angry frown.
"I mean she made me feel it--as plainly as I'm telling it! What I can't understand," his daughter went on, "is Deborah's attitude in the affair." "What's the matter with Deborah ?" inquired Roger dismally.
"Oh, nothing's the matter with Deborah.

She's quite self-sufficient.

She at least can play with modern ideas and keep her head while she's doing it.
But when poor Laura--a mere child with the mind of a chicken--catches vaguely at such ideas, applies them to her own little self and risks her whole future happiness, it seems to me perfectly criminal for Deborah not to interfere! Not even a word of warning!" "Deborah believes," said her father, "in everyone's leading his own life." "That's rot," was Edith's curt reply.

"Do I lead my own life?
Does Bruce?
Do you ?" "No," growled Roger feelingly.
"Do my children ?" Edith demanded.

"I know Deborah would like them to.
That's her latest and most modern fad, to run a school where every child shall sit with a rat in its lap or a goat, and do just what he pleases--follow his natural bent, she says.