He had been carrying his hat in his hand and he leaned on his stick wondering whether she were really in earnest, whether he had displeased her by the half-mocking tone in which he had spoken.
"Please don't talk this old, romantic, mediaeval nonsense about women! This is the twentieth century, and I don't believe for a minute that a woman, just by being a woman, can keep the world sweet and beautiful.
Once, maybe; but not any more! A woman's ideals aren't a bit better than a man's unless she stands up for them and works for them.

You don't have to take that from a college senior; you can ask dear Mrs.Owen.

I suppose she knows life from experience if any woman ever did, and she has held to her ideals and kept working away at them.

But just being a woman, and being good, and nice, and going to church, and belonging to a missionary society--well, Mr.Harwood ?" She had changed from earnestness to a note of raillery.
"Yes, Miss Garrison," he replied in her own key; "if you expect me to take issue with you or Mrs.Owen on any point, you're much mistaken.

You and she are rather fortunate over many of the rest of us in having both brains and gentle hearts--the combination is irresistible! When you come home to throw in your lot with that of about a quarter of a million of us in our Hoosier capital, I'll put myself at your disposal.