which seemed to say that a sentiment, with her, might consume its
object, might consume Miss Chancellor, but would never consume itself.
Verena, as yet, had no sense of being scorched; she was only agreeably
warmed. She also had dreamed of a friendship, though it was not what she
had dreamed of most, and it came over her that this was the one which
fortune might have been keeping. She never held back.

"Do you live here all alone?" she asked of Olive.

"I shouldn't if you would come and live with me!"

Even this really passionate rejoinder failed to make Verena shrink; she
thought it so possible that in the wealthy class people made each other
such easy proposals. It was a part of the romance, the luxury, of
wealth; it belonged to the world of invitations, in which she had had so
little share. But it seemed almost a mockery when she thought of the
little house in Cambridge, where the boards were loose in the steps of
the porch.

"I must stay with my father and mother," she said. "And then I have my
work, you know. That's the way I must live now."

"Your work?" Olive repeated, not quite understanding.

"My gift," said Verena, smiling.

"Oh yes, you must use it. That's what I mean; you must move the world
with it; it's divine."

It was so much what she meant that she had lain awake all night thinking
of it, and the substance of her thought was that if she could only
rescue the girl from the danger of vulgar exploitation, could only
constitute herself her protectress and devotee, the two, between them,
might achieve the great result. Verena's genius was a mystery, and it
might remain a mystery; it was impossible to see how this charming,
blooming, simple creature, all youth and grace and innocence, got her
extraordinary powers of reflexion. When her gift was not in exercise she
appeared anything but reflective, and as she sat there now, for
instance, you would never have dreamed that she had had a vivid
revelation. Olive had to content herself, provisionally, with saying
that her precious faculty had come to her just as her beauty and
distinction (to Olive she was full of that quality) had come; it had
dropped straight from heaven, without filtering through her parents,
whom Miss Chancellor decidedly did not fancy. Even among reformers she
discriminated; she thought all wise people wanted great changes, but the
votaries of change were not necessarily wise. She remained silent a
little, after her last remark, and t