e foresaw that they might be mutually respecting
friends.

CHAPTER V.

Selma knew intuitively that an American woman was able to cook a smooth
custard, write a poem and control real society with one and the same
brain and hand, and she was looking forward to the realization of the
apotheosis; but, though she was aware that children are the natural
increment of wedlock, she had put the idea from her ever since her
marriage as impersonal and vaguely disgusting. Consequently her
confinement came as an unwelcome interruption of her occupations and
plans.

Her connection with the committee for the new church had proved an
introduction to other interests, charitable and social. One day she was
taken by Mrs. Taylor to a meeting of the Benham Woman's Institute, a
literary club recently established by Mrs. Margaret Rodney Earle, a
Western newspaper woman who had made her home in Benham. Selma came in
upon some twenty of her own sex in a hotel private parlor hired weekly
for the uses of the Institute. Mrs. Earle, the president, a large florid
woman of fifty, with gray hair rising from the brow, fluent of speech,
endowed with a public manner, a commanding bust and a vigorous,
ingratiating smile, wielded a gavel at a little table and directed the
exercises. A paper on Shakespeare's heroines was read and discussed.
Selections on the piano followed. A thin woman in eye-glasses, the
literary editor of the _Benham Sentinel_, recited "Curfew must not ring
to-night," and a visitor from Wisconsin gave an exhibition in melodious
whistling. In the intervals, tea, chocolate with whipped cream and
little cakes were dispensed.

Selma was absorbed and thrilled. What could be more to her taste than
this? At the close of the whistling exercise, Mrs. Earle came over and
spoke to her. They took a strong fancy to each other on the spot. Selma
preferred a person who would tell you everything about herself and to
whom you could tell everything about yourself without preliminaries.
People like Mrs. Taylor repressed her, but the motherly loquacity and
comprehension of Mrs. Earle drew her out and thawed at once and forever
the ice of acquaintanceship. Before she quite realized the extent of
this fascination she had promised to recite something, and as in a
dream, but with flushing cheeks, she heard the President rap the table
and announce "You will be gratified to hear that a talented friend who
is with us has kindly consented to favor us with