n directly
connected with hot corn-bread for breakfast, as opposed
to the accredited diet of legumes upon which consciences
arrive at such successful maturity in the East. It was,
at all events, a conscience in excellent controlling
order. It directed Miss Kimpsey, for example, to teach
three times a week in the boys' night-school through the
winter, no matter how sharply the wind blew off Lake
Michigan, in addition to her daily duties at the High
School, where for ten years she had imparted instruction
in the "English branches," translating Chaucer into the
modern dialect of Sparta, Illinois, for the benefit of
Miss Elfrida Bell, among others. It had sent her on this
occasion to see Mrs. Leslie Bell, and Miss Kimpsey could
remember circumstances under which she had obeyed her
conscience with more alacrity.

"It isn't," said Miss Kimpsey, with internal discouragement,
"as if I knew her well."

Miss Kimpsey did not know Mrs. Bell at all well. Mrs.
Bell was president of the Browning Club, and Miss Kimpsey
was a member, they met, too, in the social jumble of
fancy fairs in aid of the new church organ; they had a
bowing acquaintance--that is, Mrs. Bell, had. Miss
Kimpsey's part of it was responsive, and she always gave
a thought to her boots and her gloves when she met Mrs.
Bell. It was not that the Spartan social circle which
Mrs. Bell adorned had any vulgar prejudice against the
fact that Miss Kimpsey earned her own living--more than
one of its ornaments had done the same thing--and Miss
Kimpsey's relations were all "in grain" and obviously
respectable. It was simply that none, of the Kimpseys,
prosperous or poor, had ever been in society in Sparta,
for reasons which Sparta itself would probably be unable
to define; and this one was not likely to be thrust among
the elect because she taught school and enjoyed life upon
a scale of ethics.

Mrs. Bell's drawing-room was a slight distraction to Miss
Kimpsey's nervous thoughts. The little school-teacher
had never been in it before, and it impressed her. "It's
just what you would expect her parlor to be," she said
to herself, looking furtively round. She could not help
her sense of impropriety; she had always been taught that
it was very bad manners to observe anything hi another
person's house, but she could not help looking either.
She longed to get up and read the names of the books
behind the glass doors of the tall bookcase at the other
end of the room, for the