arts known to herself. This
little society was rather suburban and miscellaneous; it was prolific in
ladies who trotted about, early and late, with books from the Athenaeum
nursed behind their muff, or little nosegays of exquisite flowers that
they were carrying as presents to each other. Verena, who, when Olive
was not with her, indulged in a good deal of desultory contemplation at
the window, saw them pass the house in Charles Street, always apparently
straining a little, as if they might be too late for something. At
almost any time, for she envied their preoccupation, she would have
taken the chance with them. Very often, when she described them to her
mother, Mrs. Tarrant didn't know who they were; there were even days
(she had so many discouragements) when it seemed as if she didn't want
to know. So long as they were not some one else, it seemed to be no use
that they were themselves; whoever they were, they were sure to have
that defect. Even after all her mother's disquisitions Verena had but
vague ideas as to whom she would have liked them to be; and it was only
when the girl talked of the concerts, to all of which Olive subscribed
and conducted her inseparable friend, that Mrs. Tarrant appeared to feel
in any degree that her daughter was living up to the standard formed for
her in their Cambridge home. As all the world knows, the opportunities
in Boston for hearing good music are numerous and excellent, and it had
long been Miss Chancellor's practice to cultivate the best. She went in,
as the phrase is, for the superior programmes, and that high, dim,
dignified Music Hall, which has echoed in its time to so much eloquence
and so much melody, and of which the very proportions and colour seem to
teach respect and attention, shed the protection of its illuminated
cornice, this winter, upon no faces more intelligently upturned than
those of the young women for whom Bach and Beethoven only repeated, in a
myriad forms, the idea that was always with them. Symphonies and fugues
only stimulated their convictions, excited their revolutionary passion,
led their imagination further in the direction in which it was always
pressing. It lifted them to immeasurable heights; and as they sat
looking at the great florid, sombre organ, overhanging the bronze statue
of Beethoven, they felt that this was the only temple in which the
votaries of their creed could worship.

And yet their music was not their greatest joy, for they had