at last she went upstairs and shut herself in the attic. The younger
children came home from school, and wanted to know where mamma was.
Nobody knew. Bye and bye, the cook came. 'Marse Basil, what we gwine
have fo' dinner? I done been up to Mis' Nannie, an' she say g'way
an' not pester her--she busy.' Company came, and there was dreadful
confusion--nobody knew what to do about anything--and still Aunt
Nannie was locked in! At last came dinner-time, and everybody else
came. At last up went the butler, and came down with the message
that they were to eat whatever they had, and take care of the
company somehow, and go to prayer-meeting, and let her alone--she
was writing a letter to the Castleman County _Register_ on the
subject of 'The Duty of Woman as a Homemaker'!"

8. This was the beginning of my introduction to Castleman County. It
was a long time before I went there, but I learned to know its
inhabitants from Sylvia's stories of them. Funny stories, tragic
stories, wild and incredible stories out of a half-barbaric age! She
would tell them and we would laugh together; but then a wistful look
would come into her eyes, and a silence would fall. So very soon I
made the discovery that my Sylvia was homesick. In all the years
that I knew her she never ceased to speak of Castleman Hall as
"home". All her standards came from there, her new ideas were
referred there.

We talked of Suffrage for a while, and I spoke about the lives of
women on lonely farms--how they give their youth and health to their
husband's struggle, yet have no money partnership which they can
enforce in case of necessity. "But surely," cried Sylvia, "you don't
want to make divorce more easy!"