certainty, she slipped the paper into her pocket without unfolding it,
and went into the woods. When she had arrived at a secluded spot and
made sure that no one was watching her, she unfolded the paper and
hastily glanced at the contents. One poem only was printed, entitled
_Bellman's-day_. She turned to "Letters to Correspondents." Her first
glance at the small print made her start violently. Her fingers
clutched the paper, rolled it into a ball and flung it into the
underwood. Then she stared, fascinated, at the ball of white,
glimmering through the green undergrowth. For the first time in her
life she had received an insult. She was completely unnerved. This
unknown journalist had dared what nobody had dared before: he had been
rude to her. She had come out from behind her trenches into the arena
where high birth counts for nothing, but where victory belongs to that
wonderful natural endowment which we call talent, and before which all
powers bow when it can no longer be denied. But the unknown had also
offended the woman in her, for he had said:

"The Corinna of 1807 would have cooked dinners and rocked cradles if
she had lived after 1870. But you are no Corinna."

For the first time she had heard the voice of the enemy, the
arch-enemy, man. Cook dinners and rock cradles! They should see!

She went home. She felt so crushed that her muscles hardly obeyed her
relaxed nerves.

When she had gone a little way, she suddenly turned round and retraced
her footsteps. Supposing anybody found that paper! It would give her
away.