eager population restless with new ideas and stimulating ambitions. So
at least Selma thought of it, and though Boston and New York and a few
other places were accepted by her as authoritative, she accepted them,
as she accepted Shakespeare, as a matter of course and so far removed
from her immediate outlook as almost not to count. But Benham with its
seventy-five thousand inhabitants and independent ways was a fascinating
possibility. Once established there the world seemed within her grasp,
including Boston. Might it not be that Benham, in that it was newer, was
nearer to truth and more truly American than that famous city? She was
not prepared to believe this an absurdity.

At least the mental atmosphere of Westfield and even of the somewhat
less solemn Wilton suggested this apotheosis of the adjacent city to be
reasonable. Westfield had stood for Selma as a society of serious though
simple souls since she could first remember and had been one of them.
Not that she arrogated to her small native town any unusual qualities of
soul or mind in distinction from most other American communities, but
she regarded it as inferior in point of view to none, and typical of the
best national characteristics. She had probably never put into words the
reasons of her confidence, but her daily consciousness was permeated
with them. To be an American meant to be more keenly alive to the
responsibility of life than any other citizen of civilization, and to be
an American woman meant to be something finer, cleverer, stronger, and
purer than any other daughter of Eve. Under the agreeable but sobering
influence of this faith she had grown to womanhood, and the heroic deeds
of the civil war had served to intensify a belief, the truth of which
she had never heard questioned. Her mission in life had promptly been
recognized by her as the development of her soul along individual lines,
but until the necessity for a choice had arisen she had been content to
contemplate a little longer. Now the world was before her, for she was