friends were not her
friends, their amusements not her amusements, and their talk not her
talk. But Cynthia watched them, as was her duty, and gradually absorbed
many things which are useful if not essential--outward observances of
which the world takes cognizance, and which she had been sent there by
Uncle Jethro to learn. Young people of Cynthia's type and nationality are
the most adaptable in the world.

Before the December snows set in Cynthia had made one firm friend, at
least, in Boston; outside of the Merrill family. That friend was Miss
Lucretia Penniman, editress of the Woman's Hour. Miss Lucretia lived in
the queerest and quaintest of the little houses tucked away under the
hill, with the back door a story higher than the fronts an arrangement
which in summer enabled the mistress to walk out of her sitting-room
windows into a little walled garden. In winter that sitting room was the
sunniest, cosiest room in the city, and Cynthia spent many hours there,
reading or listening to the wisdom that fell from the lips of Miss
Lucretia or her guests. The sitting room had uneven, yellow-white
panelling that fairly shone with enamel, mahogany bookcases filled with
authors who had chosen to comply with Miss Lucretia's somewhat rigorous
censorship; there was a table laden with such magazines as had to do with
the uplifting of a sex, a delightful wavy floor covered with a rose
carpet; and, needless to add, not a pin or a pair of scissors out of
place in the whole apartment.

There is no intention of enriching these pages with Miss Lucretia's
homilies. Their subject-matter may be found in the files of the Woman's
Hour. She did not always preach, although many people will not believe
this statement. Miss Lucretia, too, had a heart, though she kept it
hidden away, only to be brought out on occasions when she was sure of its
appreciation, and she grew strangely interested in this self-contained
girl from Coniston whose mother she had known. Miss Lucretia understood
Cynthia, who also was the kind who kept her heart hidden, the kind who
conceal their troubles and sufferings because they find it difficult to
give them out. So Miss Lucretia had Cynthia to take supper with her at
least once in the week, and watched her quietly, and let her speak of as
much of her life as she chose--which was not much, at first. But Miss
Lucretia was content to wait, and guessed at many things which Cynthia
did not tell her, and made some personal