ok and the
provision list, and thinking twice before making any new outlay, was
something she had not bargained for. All through her early life as a
girl, the question of money had been kept in the background by the
simplicity of her surroundings. In her country town at home they had
kept no servants. A woman relative had done the work, and she had been
free to pursue her mental interests and devote herself to her father.
She had thought then that the existence of domestic servants was an act
of treason against the institutions of the country by those who kept
them. Yet she had accepted, with glee, the hired-girl whom Babcock had
provided, satisfying her own democratic scruples by dubbing her "help,"
and by occasionally offering her a book to read or catechising her as to
her moral needs. There is probably no one in the civilized world more
proud of the possession of a domestic servant than the American woman
who has never had one, and no one more prompt to consign her to the
obscurity of the kitchen after a feeble pretence at making her feel at
home. Selma was delighted to have two instead of one, and, after
beholding Mrs. Williams's trig maids, was eager to see her own arrayed
in white caps and black alpaca dresses. Yet, though she had become keen
to cultivate the New York manner, and had succeeded in reconciling her
conscience to the possession of beautiful things by people with a
purpose, it irked her to feel that she was hampered in living up to her
new-found faith by the bugbear of a lean purse. She had expected, as
Wilbur's wife, to figure quickly and gracefully in the van of New York
intellectual and social progress. Instead, she was one among thousands,
living in a new and undeveloped locality, unrecognized by the people of
whom she read in the newspapers, and without opportunities for
displaying her own individuality and talents. It depressed her to see
the long lines of houses, street after street, and to think that she was
merely a unit, unknown by name, in this great sea of humanity--she,
Selma Littleton, free-born American, conscious of virtue and power. This
must not be; and she divined clearer and clearer every day that it need
not be if she had more money.

It began to be annoying to her that Wilbur's professional progress was
not more rapid. To be sure he had warned her that he could not hope to
reach the front rank at once; that recognition must be gradual; and that
he must needs work slowly in order