"I sometimes wish I might
never see pen, ink, and paper again. That is why I am overdone. But I am
ashamed to say it; for I magnify my office as a working woman, and am
thankful to be independent."
"But I thought literary people had such a pleasure in their gift," said
Claudia.
"Very likely--those eminent persons who tell the interviewers they never
write more than five hundred words a day. But I am only a hewer of wood
and a drawer of water, so to speak."
"But the thought of being useful!"
"Yes, and the thought----but here is Susie."
Susie was the friend who taught singing. Claudia thought she had never
seen a woman look more exhausted; but Claudia knew so little of life.
"You have had a long day, my dear," said Babette, as Susie threw herself
into a chair; "it is your journey to the poles, isn't it?"
"To the poles?" said Claudia.
"Yes; this is the day she has to be at a Hampstead school from 9.30 till
12.30, and at a Balham school from 2.30 till 4. It's rather a drive to
do it, since they are as far as the poles asunder."
"Still," said Claudia, "railway travelling must rest you."
"Not very much," said Susie, "when you travel third class and the trains
are crowded."
"But it must be so nice to feel that you are really filling a useful
position in the world."
"I don't know that I am," said Susie, rather wearily. "A good many of my
pupils have no ear, and had far better be employed at something else.
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