ave both been saved a world
of trouble after all!"

"My child was a little girl," I answered.

Another woman came to me, saying:

"You poor, dear thing! I'm glad you are bearing it so well--you look
splendidly. Of course you won't stay in mourning long; will you? It's
really not necessary for a child; and then I think one _needs_ the
distractions of society to drown one's sorrows!"

And all in such a flippant tone!

There are some who haven't heard of it at all, which seems so strange
to me, who see and think of nothing else indoor and out!

And Sue Troyon I shall never forget or stop loving as long as I live.
She put her arms about me and kissed me, when she first met me, right
in the street, and never said a word, but her eyes were wet. _She_ is
a woman and a friend!

So now I am going to join you abroad, to travel and live among pictures
and music and real people. These months out of society have broken the
charm. I've tried to go back, but I can't stand it. The inanities of an
afternoon At Home are more than I can bear. Everybody repeating to each
other the same absurd commonplaces over and over again. Society
conversation in one way is like a Wagner opera: it is composed of the
same themes, which recur over and over again; only, in the conversation
referred to, these themes are deadly, dull, fatuous remarks. As for
balls and evening parties, I don't care about dancing any more,
somehow, and to see the young _debutantes_ about me almost breaks my
heart, full of memories of my daughter and what she might have been.
Tears are not becoming to a very low-necked dress, and shouldn't be
worn with powder and jewels. No, my dear Mary, I see in this society of
ours, we all grow so hardened, that if we don't have some such grief as
I have had, we become hopeless. People soon forgot I had ever had a
child, or at least that she hadn't been dead for years. I find myself
becoming a bore, because of perhaps a certain lack of spirit that I
used to have; and I began to realize that I had never been liked for
myself, but for what I gave, and for the atmosphere of amusement which
I helped to create by nearly always being gay and enjoying myself. As
you yourself said of society, it is absolutely unsatisfactory. I never
knew a purely society woman yet who wasn't somewhat or sometimes
dissatisfied. First, they can't go as much or everywhere they want; and
soon after they have all the opportunities they desire, they find that
isn