It was significant of her attitude that, although she had meant all along to drop in on Edith, on her way home, and knew besides that she was certain to find one or two more of her college friends, she had no thought of them in connection with her speech. She had unconsciously drifted into imagining, as did all outsiders, that Augusta Coles and Bertha Christie were the types and her own friends the anomalies among college women. Her friendships and her activities were no longer brought into contact. So long as Ellen was looking for companionship, she still showed herself capable of appreciating wisdom as well as cleverness, good sense as well as originality; but just so soon as she desired enlightenment, she forgot that her own friends might hold opinions worthy of consideration, and singled out the eccentric or visionary among her acquaintances. In doing so she was not consciously seeking singularity, she was rather showing her instinctive reverence for experience. Having become something of a doctrinaire, she went for her instruction to those more advanced than herself. Had Edith Warrington been true to what seemed to Ellen the best in her, she might have been set among the sages, but Edith had voluntarily forfeited all right to be considered really earnest, for after she had determined to devote her life to study, she had been turned aside by a mere trifle. In the second year of her post-graduate study, she had had a call from an old lady whom she had always found most entertaining and had been bored with the random gossip so delightful hitherto. "It's the last straw," she said, in talking to one of her friends of the occurrence, "when Mrs. Astruther bores me there's something the matter. I've noticed an indifference to everything but my work growing upon me of late, but have ignored it. This shock has brought me to my senses and shows me that I prefer people to things." She was urged not to generalize too hastily, by the friends who were eager to see her fulfil her promise as a scholar. She had now been married about five years, and, because the memory of her scholarship was still fresh, she was spoken of as one lost past recovery; for, though she never lost her student ways, she was no longer called a student. When Ellen came within sight of the house, she heard some one tap on the pane and on looking up saw Edith signalling to her not to ring. "Here you are at last, Nell," was her greeting. "I was looking for you. What kept you so late? Some old committee?" "Oh, I'm dead tired. I have had a miserable afternoon." "You poor thing! Come along and be amused. Louise and Evelyn are here. They're having a heated discussion about matrimony. It's a bit personal and very funny." "Louise and Evelyn? It must be absurd." "Yes, they think they're talking on broad general principles, but they're just talking about Dick Fisher and Mr. Brandon."