ully alive to the grave responsibilities
of her office, which she accumulated upon the girl in proportion as she
flung off all responsibilities of her own. She was doubtless deceived
by that show of calm which sometimes deceived Grace herself, who, in
tutoring her soul to bear what it had to bear, mistook her tense effort
for spiritual repose, and scarcely realized through her tingling nerves
the strain she was undergoing. In spite of the bitter experience of
her life, she was still very ardent in her hopes of usefulness, very
scornful of distress or discomfort to herself, and a little inclined
to exact the heroism she was ready to show. She had a child's severe
morality, and she had hardly learned to understand that there is much
evil in the world that does not characterize the perpetrators: she
held herself as strictly to account for every word and deed as she held
others, and she had an almost passionate desire to meet the consequence
of her errors; till that was felt, an intolerable doom hung over her.
She tried not to be impulsive; that was criminal in one of her calling;
and she struggled for patience with an endeavor that was largely
successful.

As to the effect of her career outside of herself, and of those whom her
skill was to benefit, she tried to think neither arrogantly nor meanly.
She would not entertain the vanity that she was serving what is
called the cause of woman, and she would not assume any duties or
responsibilities toward it. She thought men were as good as women;
at least one man had been no worse than one woman; and it was in no
representative or exemplary character that she had chosen her course. At
the same time that she held these sane opinions, she believed that she
had put away the hopes with the pleasures that might once have taken her
as a young girl. In regard to what had changed the current of her life,
she mentally asserted her mere nullity, her absolute non-existence. The
thought of it no longer rankled, and that interest could never be hers
again. If it had not been so much like affectation, and so counter to
her strong aesthetic instinct, she might have made her dress somehow
significant of her complete abeyance in such matters; but as it was she
only studied simplicity, and as we have seen from the impression of the
barge-driver she did not finally escape distinction in dress and manner.
In fact, she could not have escaped that effect if she would; and it was
one of the indomitab