it represented the principles which were dear to her, and that she had been appreciated there far better than in her present sphere.  She was still tied to Benham by correspondence with Mrs. Earle.  Selma had written at once to explain her sudden departure, and letters passed between them at intervals of a few weeks—­letters on Selma’s part fluent with dazzled metropolitan condescension, yet containing every now and then a stern charge against her new fellow-citizens on the score of levity and worldliness.

The donation for the establishment of Wetmore College was made shortly after another institution for the education of women in which Pauline was interested—­Everdean College—­had been opened to students.  The number of applicants for admission to Everdean had been larger than the authorities had anticipated, and Pauline, who had been one of the promoters and most active workers in raising funds for and supervising the construction of this labor of love, was jubilant over the outlook, and busy in regard to a variety of new matters presented for solution by the suddenly evolved needs of the situation.  Among these was the acquisition of two or three new women instructors; and it occurred to Pauline at once that Selma might know of some desirable candidate.  Selma appeared to manifest but little interest in this inquiry at the time, but a few months subsequent to their conversation in regard to Mrs. Taylor she presented herself at Pauline’s rooms one morning with the announcement that she had found some one.  Pauline, who was busy at her desk, asked permission to finish a letter before listening; so there was silence for a few minutes, and Selma, who wore a new costume of a more fashionable guise than her last, reflected while she waited that the details of such work as occupied her sister-in-law must be tedious.  Indeed, she had begun to entertain of late a sort of contempt for the deliberate, delving processes of the Littletons.  She was inclined to ask herself if Wilbur and Pauline were not both plodders.  Her own idea of doing things was to do them quickly and brilliantly, arriving at conclusions, as became an American, with prompt energy and despatch.  It seemed to her that Wilbur, in his work, was slow and elaborate, disposed to hesitate and refine instead of producing boldly and immediately.  And his sister, with her studies and letter-writing, suggested the same wearisome tendency.  Why should not Wilbur, in his line, act with the confident enterprise and capacity to produce immediate, ostensible results which their neighbor, Gregory Williams, displayed?  As for Pauline, of course she had not Wilbur’s talent and could not, perhaps, be expected to shine conspicuously, but surely she might make more of herself if only she would cease to spend so much time in details and cogitation, with nothing tangible to show for her labor.  Selma remembered her own experience as a small school teacher, and her thankfulness at her escape from a petty task unworthy of her capabilities, and she smiled scornfully to herself, as she sat waiting, at what she regarded Pauline’s willingness to spend her energies in such inconspicuous, self-effacing work.  Indeed, when Pauline had finished her letter and announced that she was now entirely at leisure, Selma felt impelled to remark: