That I should have felt it so, was no doubt a part of that Taylorvillian fallacy in which I had been reared, that all that was precious and desirable was shed as the natural flower and fruit of goodness. Here confronted with the concrete preciousness of the shop windows, I realized that if there had been anything originally sound in that proposition, I had at least missed the particular kind of goodness to which it was chargeable. I wanted, I absurdly wanted just then to collect my arrears of privilege and consideration in terms of hardwood furniture and afternoon teakettles, in graceful, feminine leisure, all the traditional sanctity and enthronement of women, for which I had paid with my body, with maternal anxieties and wifely submission. What glimmered on my horizon was the realization that it was not in such appreciable coin the debt was paid, the beginning of knowledge that seldom, except by accident, is it paid at all. What I learned from Pauline was that most of it came by way of the bargain counter. Not even the Shining Destiny was due to arrive merely by reason of your own private conviction of being fit, but demanded something to be laid down for it; though if you had named the whole price to me at that juncture, I should have refused to pay. Besides all this, the most memorable thing that came of my visit to Pauline was that I went to the theatre. It was Henry's suggestion; he thought I wanted cheering. Pauline was not going out much that season and her reluctance to claim my attention, in the face of my bereavement, to her own approaching Event, threw at times a shadow of constraint on our quiet evenings. Henry had fallen into a way of taking me out for timid and Higglestonian glimpses of the night sights of the city, but I am not sure it was the obligation of hospitality which led him to propose the theatre. I recall that he displayed a particular knowingness about what he styled "the attractions." What surprised me most was that I discovered no qualms in myself over a proceeding so at variance with my bringing up; and the piece, a broad comedy of Henry's selection, made no particular impression on me other than the singular one of having known a great deal about it before. My criticism of the acting brought Pauline around with a swing from the City Cousin attitude in which she had initiated the experience for me, to one æsthetically sympathetic. "The things men choose, my dear--and to anybody who has been saturated in Shakespeare as you have! You really must see Modjeska; it will be an inspiration to you. Henry, you must take her to see Modjeska."