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looked about her little office, grown dusty in her absence, and settled herself before the waste-basket to sharpen pencils. Below her was School Street with its rattle of equipages and beyond was Tremont Street and the Common. The lacing trees were little by little releasing their drying leaves and under them and through the leaves criss-crossing on little walks, stepping positively to and fro—were the Bostonians!

No chair in the world as comfortable as the old red-leather one in which she had once sat for months drawing fashion-plates and writing genteel stories for female consumption. She was glad that they had come out under a nom-de-plume—even under many noms-de-plume. Of course they were a disgrace, but she felt no personal regret for them. They were written by some one else, who, although she looked and talked like her, had thought other thoughts and had really been quite another person. And that was a year ago.

'I think,' she said to herself, 'it is because I really care so much more for life than I did a year ago—that is why I cannot distort it now. You can't, if you like people well enough. You don't want to make them out different from what they really are.