Blanchard, there was a new resolve in her eyes--a look that had not been
there when she went, an hour before, to the luncheon table. It was the
look of one who has resolutions that cannot be shattered--dreams that are
unbreakable. She glanced at her wrist watch and there was a shade of
defiance in the very way she raised the arm that wore it.

"They make a baby of me here," she told herself, "they treat me like a
silly child. It's a wonder that they don't send a nurse-maid with me to
my classes. It's a wonder"--she was growing vehement--"that they give me
credit for enough sense to wear rubbers when it's raining! I," again she
glanced at the watch, "I haven't a single thing to do until four
o'clock--and it's only just a little after two. I'm going out--_now_. I'm
going into the streets, or into a tenement, or into a--a _dive_, if
necessary! I'm going to show them"--the plural pronoun, strangely,
referred to a certain young man--"that I can help somebody! I'm going to
show them--"

She was struggling eagerly into her coat; eagerly she pulled her
tam-o'-shanter over the curls that, even in the city slums, were full of
sunshine. With her hands thrust staunchly into her pockets, she went out;
out into the jungle of streets that met, as in the center of a labyrinth,
in front of the Settlement House.

Always, when she had gone out alone, she had sought a small park not far
from her new home. It was a comfortingly green little oasis in the desert
of stone and brick--a little oasis that reminded one of the country. She
turned toward it now, quite blindly, for the streets confused her--they
always did. As the crowds closed around her she hurried vaguely, as a
swimmer hurries just before he loses his head and goes down. She caught
her breath as she went, for the crowds always made her feel