To her the Wilderness was a strange and wonderful place in which
to try her powers of endurance, but the trail had none of the charms of
association which it possessed for me. She was quite ready to accompany
me to the city although she professed to be content with Neshonoc. She
was entirely urban whereas I was an absurd mixture of pioneer and
trailer, fictionist and farmer.

We left West Salem in late October and in less than three days were
settled in the little hotel in Fifteenth Street where we had lived
during two previous winters. My confidence in my new novel was not
sufficient to warrant me in paying more than twenty dollars per week for
our little apartment, and as for Zulime--she professed to wonder how I
dared to pay as much as seventeen.

One by one and two by two our faithful friends called, Burroughs,
Gilder, Howells, Marion and Edward MacDowell, the Pages, Juliet
Tompkins--no one appeared to think ill of us because we returned to our
shabby little suite. We dined at Katherine Herne's, finding James A.,
"away," and with Frank Norris and his wife who were (like ourselves),
just beginning to feel a little more secure of a living, while from
Seton and Bacheller who were passing from glory to glory, we had kindly
invitations to visit their new houses, for both of them were building,
Bacheller at Sound Beach and Seton at Coscob.

Seton admitted to me that he had already acquired five times the amount
he had once named as the summit of his hopes, and Bacheller awed me by
the quiet ease of his way of life. In the opulent presence of these men,
I sang a very meek and slender song. I hated to admit my poverty, but
what was the use of making any concealment?

It remains to say that neither Bacheller nor Seton expressed in the
slightest degree the sense of superiority which their larger royalties
might have warranted. I am quite sure they never went so far as to feel
sorry for me although they very naturally rejoiced in their own
triumphant progress. In some ways I envied them, but I begrudged them
nothing.

It chanced that the Setons were far enough along with their building to
announce a House Warming, and on New Year's Day, Zulime and I were
fortunate enough to be included in the list of their guests. On the
Saturday train we found Lloyd Osbourne, Richard Le Gallienne and several
others whom we knew and on arrival at the new house on its rocky ledge
above the lake, we found that the party also included Mary