she has been surrounded by danger, once narrowly
escaping cremation. But my humanity towards dumb brutes saved her. I might
have sacrificed a woman, but I could not kill a cat. So she lives,
unconsciously owing her life to her cat.

Thus she comes to you, bearing her friends in her heart. I should scarcely
dare ask you to welcome her, did I not suspect that her friends are yours.
You have your Flossy and your Charlie Hardy without doubt. Pray Heaven you
have a Rachel to outweigh them.

CHICAGO, _March, 1893_.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

1. I INTRODUCE ME TO MYSELF 1

2. I COME INTO MY KINGDOM 8

3. MATRIMONY IN HARNESS 18

4. WOMEN AS LOVERS 30

5. THE HEART OF A COQUETTE 51

6. THE LONELY CHILDHOOD OF A CLEVER CHILD 65

7. A STUDY IN HUMAN GEESE 78

8. A GAME OF HEARTS 91

9. THE MADONNA OF THE QUIET MIND 120

10. THE PATHOS OF FAITH 137

11. THE HAZARD OF A HUMAN DIE 156

12. IN WHICH I WILLINGLY TURN MY FACE WESTWARD 174

THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF ON OLD MAID

* * *

I

I INTRODUCE ME TO MYSELF

"There is a luxury in self-dispraise;
And inward self-disparagement affords
To meditative spleen a grateful feast."

To-morrow I shall be an Old Maid. What a trying thing to have to say even
to one's self, and how vexed I should be if anybody else said it to me!
Nevertheless, it is a comfort to be brutally honest once in a while to
myself. I do not dare, I do not care, to be so to everybody. But with my
own self, I can feel that it is strictly a family affair. If I hurt my
feelings, I can grieve over it until I apologize. If I flatter myself, I
am only doing what every other woman in the world is doing in her
innermost consciousness, and flattery as honest as flattery from one's
own self naturally would be could not fail to please me. Besides, it would
have the unique value of being believed by both sides--a situation in the
flattery line which I fancy has no rival.

It is