lked in the paths of
obscurity, and led me, by a pleasanter lane than I could have found by
myself, to the open fields where obstacles thinned and opportunities
crowded to meet me. Outside America I should hardly be believed if I
told how simply, in my experience, Dover Street merged into the Back
Bay. These are matters to which I long to testify, but I must wait
till they recede into the past.

I can conjure up no better symbol of the genuine, practical equality
of all our citizens than the Hale House Natural History Club, which
played an important part in my final emancipation from the slums. For
all I was regarded as a plaything by the serious members of the club,
the attention and kindness they lavished on me had a deep
significance. Every one of those earnest men and women unconsciously
taught me my place in the Commonwealth, as the potential equal of the
best of them. Few of my friends in the club, it is true, could have
rightly defined their benevolence toward me. Perhaps some of them
thought they befriended me for charity's sake, because I was a starved
waif from the slums. Some of them imagined they enjoyed my society,
because I had much to say for myself, and a gay manner of meeting
life. But all these were only secondary motives. I myself, in my
unclouded perception of the true relation of things that concerned me,
could have told them all why they spent their friendship on me. They
made way for me because I was their foster sister. They opened their
homes to me that I might learn how good Americans lived. In the least
of their attentions to me, they cherished the citizen in the making.

* * * * *

The Natural History Club had spent the day at Nahant, studying marine
life in the tide pools, scrambling up and down the cliffs with no
thought for decorum, bent only on securing the starfish, limpets,
sea-urchins, and other trophies of the chase. There had been a merry
luncheon on the rocks, with talk and laughter between sandwiches, and
strange jokes, intelligible only to the practising naturalist. The
tide had rushed in at its proper time, stealing away our seaweed
cushions, drowning our transparent pools, spouting in the crevices,
booming and hissing, and tossing high the snowy foam.

[Illustration: THE TIDE HAD RUSHED IN, STEALING AWAY OUR SEAWEED
CUSHIONS]

From the deck of the jolly excursion steamer which was carrying us
home, we had watched the rosy sun dip down b