"Clever—that's just it! Nothing more! The awful truth is, there's nothing more in me. I have rather a high regard for literature, you see, and on that very account I'm less willing to inflict myself on it. I wouldn't care, though, if there was anything else I appeared to be cut out for. If I felt that I could sweep crossings better than other people, I assure you I would go into the profession with the greatest cheerfulness!"
Madge laughed. "I know very much how you feel—I've been going through much the same thing myself, though you might not have guessed it. Only as it happens I have received a call for something very like the profession you speak of."
"Crossing-sweeping?"
"The next thing to it—teaching in a dame's school in town—Miss Snellgrove's. I think it's rather a pretty idea, don't you? Society flower, withered and faint with gaiety, seeking refreshment in the cloistral, the academic!—You don't approve?"
"Woman's sphere is the home," said Harry doubtfully.
"Not when the home is a two-by-four box; you couldn't call that a sphere, could you? Of course," she went on, more seriously, "of course the real, immediate reason why I'm doing it is financial. These are times of—well, stringency.... Not but what we could scrape along; but it seems rather absurd to be earning nothing when one could just as well be earning something, doesn't it? And the only alternative is playing about eternally with college boys younger than myself."
"Yes, I think you're very sensible, if that's the case. Not that it is, of course; you'll find plenty of people coming back to the graduate and professional schools to console you. Also my brother James at week-ends, if that's any comfort to you!"
"James? Is he in this part of the country?"
"Yes, in New York. He's going to be in McClellan's branch there next winter—assistant manager, or something of the sort—something important and successful sounding. We are all very much set up over it. And it's so near that he can come up for Sunday quite regularly, if he wants.—It does give me quite a solemn and humble feeling, though, to think that you have found a profession before me."
"Oh, yes; teaching at Miss Snellgrove's is more than a profession—it's a career!—I refuse to believe, though," she continued with a change of manner, "that you have not found your profession already, even though you may not care to adopt it yet. For after all, you know, you have the creative ability. Every one says that. All that's wanting in you, as you say, is having something to write about, and nothing but time and development will bring that. Meanwhile I think it's very nice and high-minded of you not to go ahead and write nothing, with great ease and fluency! That's what most people in your position do."