LXVI
Verena Raby to Josey Raby
My Dear Josey,—I am sorry for all your perplexities; but I can’t offer any help. Your father probably knows best, but even if he doesn’t, he must be considered too, because he is your father and you are a child. Besides, I find myself agreeing with what he says. Since you have asked my advice you must listen to it, and my advice is to obey your father and tell Vincent that you intend to do so. Your father has been very understanding. He has not forbidden you to see Vincent at all, as many fathers would have done; he has merely said that there are certain rules between you and him which must be respected. I think he is right, for two reasons. One because it is his house and he must be the head of it, and the other because you would be losing such a lot of your young life if you had your way and married now. Girls should be engaged; women married. To leave school and come into a world such as yours and then miss all the fun of it between your age and twenty-one, is to be very foolish. It is throwing away a very delightful freedom.
Another thing—don’t you owe anything to your father? You say that our first duty is to ourselves. I am not sure that we can always separate ourselves. Very often, and usually while we are living under other people’s roofs and taking other people’s money, we are not ourselves but a blending of ourselves and themselves. Aren’t you and your father a little bit mixed up like that? Isn’t he entitled a little longer to the company of the daughter he is so fond of? Think about it from his point of view.—Your loving
Aunt V.