changed to them, should those who do not know what to do to get rid
of the time, spend their surplus leisure in making this struggle less
brutalizing."

"Yes, I have heard such doctrine, and at one time I tried charity
myself. I picked up a dozen or so of dirty little wretches out of the
streets, and undertook to clothe and teach them. I might as well have
tried to instruct the chairs in my room. Besides the whole house had
to be aired after they had gone, and mamma missed two teaspoons and a
fork and was perfectly disgusted with the whole thing. Then I fell to
knitting socks for babies, but they only occupied my hands, and my
head felt as empty as ever. Mamma took me off on a journey, as she
always did when I took to moping, and that diverted me for a while.
But after that everything went on in the old way. I got rid of part
of the day by changing my dress, and putting on my pretty things-it
is a great thing to have a habit of wearing one's ornaments, for
instance; and then in the evening one could go to the opera or the
theater, or some other place of amusement, after which one could
sleep all through the next morning, and so get rid of that. But I had
been used to such things all my life, and they had got to be about as
flat as flat can be. If I had been born a little earlier in the
history of the world, I would have gone into a convent; but that sort
of thing is out of fashion now."

"The best convent," I said, "for a woman is the seclusion of her own
home. There she may find vocation and fight her battles, and there
she may learn the reality and the earnestness of life."

"Pshaw!"' cried she. "Excuse me, however, saying that; but some of
the most brilliant girls I know have settled down into mere married