course; it is an elective study. But the immortal
principle of life does not care much for organization, and says, as of
old, they reckon ill who leave me out.

In the early season at Newport there was little to distract the attention
and much to calm the spirit. Mrs. Mavick was busy in her preparation for
the coming campaign, and Evelyn and her governess were left much alone,
to drive along the softly lapping sea, to search among the dells of the
rocky promontory for wild flowers, or to sit on the cliffs in front of
the gardens of bloom and watch the idle play of the waves, that chased
each other to the foaming beach and in good-nature tossed about the
cat-boats and schooners and set the white sails shimmering and dipping in
the changing lights. And Evelyn, drinking in the beauty and the peace of
it, no doubt, was more pensive than joyous. Within the last few months
life had opened to her with a suddenness that half frightened her.

It was a woman who sat on the cliffs now, watching the ocean of life, no
longer a girl into whose fresh soul the sea and the waves and the air,
and the whole beauty of the world, were simply responsive to her own
gayety and enjoyment of living. It was not the charming scene that held
her thought, but the city with its human struggle, and in that struggle
one figure was conspicuous. In such moments this one figure of youth
outweighed for her all that the world held besides. It was strange.
Would she have admitted this? Not in the least, not even to herself, in
her virgin musings; nevertheless, the world was changed for her, it was
more serious, more doubtful, richer, and more to be feared.

It was not too much to say that one season had much transformed her. She
had been so ignorant of the world a year ago. She had taken for granted
all that was abstractly right. Now she saw that the conventions of life
were like sand-dunes and barriers in the path she was expected to walk.
She had learned for one thing what money was. Wealth had been such an
accepted part of her life, since she could remember, that she had
attached no importance to it, and had only just come to see what
distinctions it made, and how it built a barrier round about her. She
had come to know what it was that gave her father position and
distinction; and the knowledge had been forced upon her by all the
obsequious flattery of society that she was, as a great heiress,
something apart from others. This position, so much envied,