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The Pit by Frank Norris
page 49 of 495 (09%)
they were independent.

For two years, in the solidly built colonial dwelling, with its low
ceilings and ample fireplaces, where once the minute-men had swung
their kettles, Laura, alone, thought it all over. Mother and father
were dead; even the Boston aunt was dead. Of all her relations, Aunt
Wess' alone remained. Page was at her finishing school at Geneva
Lake, within two hours of Chicago. The Cresslers were the dearest
friends of the orphan girls. Aunt Wess', herself a widow, living
also in Chicago, added her entreaties to Mrs. Cressler's. All things
seemed to point her westward, all things seemed to indicate that one
phase of her life was ended.

Then, too, she had her ambitions. These hardly took definite shape
in her mind; but vaguely she chose to see herself, at some
far-distant day, an actress, a tragedienne, playing the roles of
Shakespeare's heroines. This idea of hers was more a desire than an
ambition, but it could not be realised in Barrington, Massachusetts.
For a year she temporised, procrastinated, loth to leave the old
home, loth to leave the grave in the cemetery back of the
Methodist-Episcopal chapel. Twice during this time she visited Page,
and each time the great grey city threw the spell of its fascination
about her. Each time she returned to Barrington the town dwindled in
her estimation. It was picturesque, but lamentably narrow. The life
was barren, the "New England spirit" prevailed in all its severity;
and this spirit seemed to her a veritable cult, a sort of religion,
wherein the Old Maid was the priestess, the Spinster the officiating
devotee, the thing worshipped the Great Unbeautiful, and the ritual
unremitting, unrelenting Housework. She detested it.

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