ter the talk with Brightie, Hazel goes out in spite of the
cutting east wind. Wearily she drags herself about, making one more
effort to dispose of the manuscript of a story she has written, which
was ignominiously returned to her as useless this morning. Hour after
hour she struggles on in a kind of desperation, trying every possible
chance of getting rid of her laborious production. She is fully assured
in her own mind that she will have no opportunity of getting out of
doors, even to try and dispose of it, after to-day for many days to
come. Her growing illness makes that certain. But all efforts are worse
than useless. It is nearing seven o'clock, and growing quite dark, when
she reaches Union-square and stumbles up those endless stairs at length.
For the first two flights the stairs are comparatively broad and
handsome, and they are thickly carpeted; but above they grow narrow and
bare and steep. As she begins to ascend, Hazel meets a lady in a rich
dress. There are preparations, too, in the lower rooms, which betoken
the commencement of some festivity. Hazel is heartsick and footsore, and
these slight matters intensify her loneliness and sadness, till as she
enters her own dark, desolate room her swelling heart finds vent in a
stifled sob. There has been no scarcity of trouble in the
five-and-twenty years of Hazel Deane's life.
And now the trouble that weighs upon her this dreary night is the
rejection all round of the treasured writing, offered everywhere with
diffidence and hope, received back always with mortification and
despair. It is now finally flung aside. Then there is the trouble of
losing her friend--her one friend, Miss Bright--for Hazel's delicate
little body holds a resolute mind and strong will, and she is determined
her friend shall not forego the so long needed rest on her account.
The moon is looking in through the uncurtained window, looking into the
cold, bare room, where only two or three cinders glow a dull red in the
grate. Beside it Hazel leans back in her chair, musing bitterly on all
the gladness gone out of her life. "I am one of those who have none to
love them," she thinks, and the tears gather in her eyes again.
She is quoting from Mr. Ruskin's "Queen's Gardens," the book which
enabled her to bear patiently a long delay at one of the publishers she
had tried that day. She had found it lying upon the table beside her as
she waited, and picking it up, had become engrossed in it.
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