nd had studied the performances at
a point of view very different from that of the audience. It
was there to be amused; she was there to learn. Spenser and
such of his friends as he would let meet her talked plays and
acting most of the time. He had forbidden her to have women
friends. "Men don't demoralize women; women demoralize each
other," was one of his axioms. But such women as she had a
bowing acquaintance with were all on the stage--in comic
operas or musical farces. She was much alone; that meant many
hours every day which could not but be spent by a mind like
hers in reading and in thinking. Only those who have observed
the difference aloneness makes in mental development, where
there is a good mind, can appreciate how rapidly, how broadly,
Susan expanded. She read plays more than any other kind of
literature. She did not read them casually but was always
thinking how they would act. She was soon making in
imagination stage scenes out of dramatic chapters in novels as
she read. More and more clearly the characters of play and
novel took shape and substance before the eyes of her fancy.
But the stage was clearly out of the question.

While the idea of a stage career had been dominant, she had
thought in other directions, also. Every Sunday, indeed almost
every day, she found in the newspapers articles on the subject
of work for women.

"Why do you waste time on that stuff?" said Drumley, when he
discovered her taste for it.

"Oh, a woman never can tell what may happen," replied she.

"She'll never learn anything from those fool articles,"
answered he. "You ought to hear the people who get them up
laughing about them. I see now why they are printed. It's good
for circulation, catches the women--even women like you."
However, she persisted in reading. But never did she find an
article that contained a really practical suggestion--that is,
one applying to the case of a woman who had to live on what
she made at the start, who was without experience and without
a family to help her. All around her had been women who were
making their way; but few indeed of them--even of those
regarded as successful--were getting along without outside aid
of some kind. So when she read or thought or inquired about
work for women, she was sometimes amused and oftener made
unhappy by the truth as to the conditions, that when a common
worker rises it is almost always by the helping hand of a man,
and rarely ind