te with slights and insults, had put forth some efforts of
her own. But it was as though one had been placed in a boat
without oars and told to row for life: the little boat under the
influence of cosmic tides had merely drifted into shallows and now
lay there--forgotten.

This morning as she sat idly rocking on the veranda, she felt that
negative happiness which consists in the disappearance of a
positively disagreeable thing. Then she began to study how she
should spend the forenoon most agreeably. Isabel was upstairs; she
would have been perfectly satisfied to talk with her; but for
several mornings Isabel had shown unmistakable preference to be let
alone; and in the school of life Harriet had attained the highest
proficiency in one branch of knowledge at least--never to get in
anybody's way. Victor Fielding lay under the trees with a pipe and
a book, but she never ventured near him.

So Harriet bethought herself of a certain friend of hers on the
other side of town, Miss Anna Hardage, who lived with her brother,
Professor Hardage--two people to trust.

She put on her hat which unfortunately she had chosen to trim
herself, tied a white veil across the upper part of her face and
got out her second-best pair of gloves: Harriet kept her best
gloves for her enemies. In the front yard she pulled a handful of
white lilacs (there was some defect here or she would never have
carried white lilacs in soiled white gloves); and passed out of the
gate. Her eyes were lighted up with anticipations, but ill must
have overtaken her in transit; for when she was seated with Miss
Anna in a little side porch looking out on the little green yard,
they were dimmed with tears.

"The same old story," she complained vehemently. "The same
ridicule that has been dinned into my ears since I was a child."

"Ah, now, somebody has been teasing her about being an old maid,"
said Miss Anna to herself, recognizing the signs.

"This world is a very unprincipled place to live in," continued
Harriet, her rage curdling into philosophy.

"Ah, but it is the best there is just yet," maintained Miss Anna,
stoutly. "By and by we may all be able to do better--those of us
who get the chance."

"What shall I care then?" said Harriet, scouting eternity as a
palliative of contemporary woes.

"Wait! you are tired and you have lost your temper from thirst:
children always do. I'll bring something to cure you, fresh from
the country, fresh from A