"How pretty it is," Claire said, watching the crimson silk flowers grow on the canvas under skillful fingers; "do you enjoy working on it?"
The tone of voice which answered her was dissatisfied in the extreme:
"Oh, I suppose so; as well as I enjoy anything that there is to do. One must employ one's self in some way, and we live such a humdrum life here that there is chance for very little variety. I am puzzled to know how you manage it, Miss Benedict; you have been accustomed to such different surroundings. This is a sharp enough contrast to Chester. Have you been in Chester yet, Miss Benedict? Well, it is just a nice little city; hardly large enough to be called a city. The society is good, and there is always something going on, and when I come out here I am at an utter loss what to do with myself. But then, Chester is very far from being Boston, and if I had had the advantages of Boston all my life, as you have, I feel sure I could not endure a month of South Plains. It is bad enough for me. How do you bear it?"
Claire could only smile in answer to this. There were circumstances connected with her removal from Boston which were too keenly felt to touch with a careless hand. She hastened to ask questions.
"What is there pleasant in Chester? I have promised myself to go there some Saturday, and see what I can find in the library."
"Oh, there is a very fair library there, I believe, for a town of its size, but I never patronize it; we have books enough. By the way, Miss Benedict, you are welcome to the use of our library. Papa will be glad to have some one enjoying the books. The girls have as much as they can endure of books in school, and Louis is not literary in his tastes; I am almost the only reader. Mamma is so busy with various city benevolences that, what with her housekeeping and social cares, she rarely has time for much reading. Oh, Chester is well enough. There are concerts, you know, and lectures, or entertainments of some sort; one can keep busy there, if one accepts invitations. But, to tell you the truth, the whole thing often bores me beyond endurance, and I am glad to get out here to be away from it all. I don't like my life. I think I have talents for something better, if one could only find what it is—the something better, I mean."
There was a pretty flush on her discontented face as she looked up eagerly to see how this confidence was being received. Claire's face was gently sympathetic, and grave. Alice took courage.
"Mamma laughs at me, and says I am visionary, and that I want to have a career, and that I must be content to fill my sphere in life, as my ancestors have done before me; but really I am not content. I don't like the sort of life spread out before me for generations back; marrying, you know, and keeping up a handsome house, and receiving and paying visits, and giving a grand party once a year, when you are sure to offend somebody to whom you were indebted in some way, and whom you forgot. Now, do you see any particular enjoyment in that sort of thing?"
"No," said Claire unhesitatingly, "I do not."
"I'm real glad to hear you say so. Mamma thinks it is dreadful to be discontented with one's lot; but I am. I would like a career of some sort; anything that would absorb me. And yet I don't want to be poor. I should shrink from that. Do you really find it easier to get along with life, now that you have not time to think, as you used?"