“Liberally translated,” said Clara, smiling, “you think Albert a tyrant. You do not understand him fully, I think, but I am glad of your frank opinion. I shall be careful to be good and just to him, and I think I shall never have cause to admire him less than I do now;” and Clara went on revealing, little by little, to Miss Marston a sentiment so near adoration that it almost appalled her, and convinced her still further that such an exalted passion could never find full response, nor be even comprehended by Albert Delano; but she said no more. The next day she left Oakdale. Her trunk had been sent to the station, which was but a short distance, and she and Clara were to walk. They passed Mrs. Buzzell’s cottage, and Miss Marston gratified Clara greatly by calling on Susie, and being really kind and friendly to her, a proceeding that quite astonished Mrs. Forest when she heard of it. As the weeks passed Mrs. Buzzell bravely stemmed the current of popular disapprobation at her act of “countenancing vice;” for the consciousness of doing right was enhanced by the good qualities she was constantly discovering in Susie. Mrs. Buzzell’s temper, never very sweet, had not improved by years of loneliness, and when criticised by her female friends, she gave them back “as good as they sent,” to use her own words; and so it came to pass that the piously-disposed ladies of the congregation to which Mrs. Buzzell belonged, and which had barely escaped receiving Susie as a member, had not the opportunity to patronize Susie, and to extend charity to her in that condescending way too well known to many an unfortunate. The continuance of such patronage depends upon the utter humility of the recipient. She must confess herself a vile sinner, be willing to take thankfully the position of the lowest scrub, and express in every act that her patronizers are above her as the stars above the earth. Let the victim dare to show any ambition to regain her self-respect, any dissatisfaction because the daughters of her patronizers treat her with contempt, while they smile graciously upon the author of her degradation, and the patronage ceases at once. “This is the way society protects itself,” said Mrs. Buzzell to Mrs. Kendrick, the banker’s wife, one of the would-be patronizers; “but is there not something wrong in the system that blasts and destroys the woman, while it winks at the sin of the man? I have come to see that in most cases, as in this, for example, her fault is much less than his. Man is taught self-dependence from the cradle; woman to depend upon man; and when she does so to the utmost limit, trusting every hope of happiness in his honor, this is a common result. We have called the doctor a radical, and graciously excused his eccentricities because he is so good a physician and so kind a man; but face to face with such facts, I see he is nearer right than we are.”