One day, during a long spell of rain, I sat talking with Miss Torsen. She
was an extraordinary girl, ordinarily proud and reserved, but sometimes
talkative, lively, and perhaps a little inconsiderate, too. We sat in the
living room, with people coming and going continually, but she did not let
that disturb her, and talked in high, clear tones; in her eagerness she
sometimes clasped her hands, and then dragged them apart again. After we
had been sitting there for some time, Tradesman Batt came in, listened to
her for a moment, and then said:

"I'm going out now, Miss Torsen; are you coming?"

She swept him once with her eyes from head to foot; then she turned away
and went on talking, looking very proud and determined as she did so. No
doubt she had many good qualities; she was twenty-seven, she said, and
sick and tired of a teacher's life.

But why had she ever entered on such a life in the first place?

"Oh, just doing what everybody else did," she replied. "The girls next
door were also going to walk the road of scholarship; to study languages,
as they called it, study grammar; it all sounded so fine. We were going to
be independent and earn a lot of money. That's what I thought! Have a
home, however small, that was quite my own. How we slogged away all
through school! Some of the girls had money, but those of us who were poor
couldn't dress like them, and we hadn't well-kept hands like theirs. And
so we came to avoid all work at home for the sake of our hands.

"And we played up to the boys at school, too. We thought them such fine
gentlemen; one of them had a riding horse, bit of a fool, of course, but
he was a millionaire's son and awfully decent, gave us banknotes--me,