ame silly little
things--copy-cats--repeaters. They're not their _own_--they're not
awake. They're like things run by machinery. Like things going in their
sleep. Take those girls we used to go to school with. Why, take Edith
Lawrence. I see her sometimes. She always speaks sweetly to me; she
means to be nice. But she moves round and round in her little place and
she doesn't even _know_ of the wonderful things going on in the world
today! Do you think I'd trade with _her_?--social leader and all the
rest of it!" She was gathering together the bundles of asparagus. She
had finished her work. "Very sweet--very charming," she disposed of
Edith, "but she simply doesn't count. The world's moving away from her,
and she,"--Annie laughed with a mild scorn--"doesn't even know that!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

It was late when Ruth went to sleep that night; she and Annie talked
through the evening--of books Annie was reading, of the things which
were interesting her. She was rich in interests; ideas were as personal
things to her; she found personal satisfactions in them. She was
following things which Ruth knew little about; she had been long away
from the centers of books, and out of touch with awakened people. A
whole new world seemed to open from these things that were vital to
Annie; there was promise in them--a quiet road out from the hard things
of self. There were new poets in the world; there were bold new
thinkers; there was an amazing new art; science was reinterpreting the
world and workers and women were setting themselves free. Everywhere the
old pattern was being shot through with new ideas. Everywhere were new
attempts at a better way of doing things. She had been away from all
that; what she knew of the world's new achievement had seemed unreal, or
at least detached, not having any touch with her own life. But as
disclosed by Annie those things became realities--things to enrich one's
own life. It kindled old fires of her girlhood, fanned the old desire to
know. Personal things had seemed to quell that; the storm in her own
life had shut down around her. Now she saw that she, like those others
whom Annie scorned, had not kept that openness to life, had let her own
life shut her in. She had all along been eager for books, but had not
been fortunate in the things she had come upon. She had not had access
to large libraries--many times not even to small ones; she had had
little money for buying books and was so