yrtle did not lift a hand to save either of the
societies. She heard the wrathful accusations of the musical warriors,
and put in the unappreciated word for peace, but did not resent its
failure. She consoled the literary mourners with the reflection that
they could read up about things in the magazines or the books of the new
library; and masked her secret listlessness with perfunctory regret.
Long after, she came to wonder whether it was not she who went into
prison, then; rather than the world that left her on one side. Did she
not gently but rigidly exclude the friends who would have called upon
her and shut herself apart with her own? Continually, she used to pray
for cheerfuless, for patience; but it never occurred to her to pray for
interest. When other societies were formed, she did not care to join
them; she followed her own advice and read apart by herself. By and by,
although so much more of a personage, she was no longer beset with
invitations. The younger women organized a new club with new methods;
and Myrtle Hardy read her books, peacefully, on her wide piazzas, amid
her plants and flowers. When Myrtie came back from college, Darius asked
her wasn't she going to help Myrtie by joining the club with her?

"Dear, no," said she, blithely, "they are all so young."

"Why don't you get up a club of your own, then, and take in the other
left outs?" said he.

"I don't fancy women's clubs much; you know I did belong to them; they
are half-baked things, and they take their own improvement with such
deadly seriousness. And it is such a smattering that you get in them. A
smattering is always forgotten; unless you know a lot about a thing you
forget it all."

"Oh, well, you know best what you like," said Darius, easily; "I only
thought you seemed a little dull." He dropped the subject; but she
repeated his words, often to herself; he never had thought her dull,
before. She noticed that Myrtie did not talk of her club. She was
puzzled. Outwardly, Myrtie was a handsome young woman with a highbred
repose of manner which she had acquired as a college editor and the
protector of new girls; inwardly, she was still shy, desperately in
dread of awkwardness, and brimming with enthusiasms. Not until she was
about to be married did her mother find a trace of her little girl in
this gently haughty young creature. And, then, there remained only
Myrtie's last photographs and Myrtie's empty chamber, and the weekly
letters for he