doubtless deceived by that show of calm which sometimes deceived Grace
herself, who, in tutoring her soul to bear what it had to bear, mistook
her tense effort for spiritual repose, and scarcely realized through her
tingling nerves the strain she was undergoing. In spite of the bitter
experience of her life, she was still very ardent in her hopes of
usefulness, very scornful of distress or discomfort to herself, and a
little inclined to exact the heroism she was ready to show. She had a
child's severe morality, and she had hardly learned to understand that
there is much evil in the world that does not characterize the
perpetrators: she held herself as strictly to account for every word and
deed as she held others, and she had an almost passionate desire to meet
the consequence of her errors; till that was felt, an intolerable doom
hung over her. She tried not to be impulsive; that was criminal in one of
her calling; and she struggled for patience with an endeavor that was
largely successful.

As to the effect of her career outside of herself, and of those whom her
skill was to benefit, she tried to think neither arrogantly nor meanly.
She would not entertain the vanity that she was serving what is called
the cause of woman, and she would not assume any duties or
responsibilities toward it. She thought men were as good as women; at
least one man had been no worse than one woman; and it was in no
representative or exemplary character that she had chosen her course. At
the same time that she held these sane opinions, she believed that she
had put away the hopes with the pleasures that might once have taken her
as a young girl. In regard to what had changed the current of her life,
she mentally asserted her mere nullity, her absolute non-existence. The
thought of it no longer rankled, and that interest could never be hers
again. If it had not been so much like affectation, and so counter to her
strong aesthetic instinct, she might have made her dress somehow