The brethren took leave of me with cordial kindness; and as for the sisterhood, I had serious thoughts of kissing them all round, but forbore to do so, because, in all such general salutations, the penance is fully equal to the pleasure. So I kissed none of them; and nobody, to say the truth, seemed to expect it.

“Do you wish me,” I said to Zenobia, “to announce in town, and at the watering-places, your purpose to deliver a course of lectures on the rights of women?”

“Women possess no rights,” said Zenobia, with a half-melancholy smile; “or, at all events, only little girls and grandmothers would have the force to exercise them.”

She gave me her hand freely and kindly, and looked at me, I thought, with a