The Signora leaned back in her seat and gave herself up to the scene, mingling with it the ever-present thought: What should she do with this man who sat opposite her? His face was turned to look back, so that she saw the profile, a fine one. She felt very feminine and weak just then—not at all like taking care of herself all her life long, being both mistress and master of her house, and her own adviser and support. The spirit of strength, of an enthusiastic liberty of effort and labor, faded and fainted within her. They could not live in such a scene. She wanted to be taken care of. All the insidious arguments of the sluggard began to whisper themselves to her. Of what use was this constant toil and strain, which was but a daily rolling up hill of a burden that every night rolled down again? Of what use the study, the thought, the self-denial? All had seemed pleasant; but, come to think of it, where had been the repose? Had she ever looked at a flower without, after the first glance, studying how she should present its beauties in words to other eyes? Had she ever drunk a sunset with all its color down into her own soul, and left its glory there, but speedily her pen must dip the light of it up to shine on a page for others to see? Whither had fled the long, tranquil sleep, the calm folding of the hands, the deep and steady thought for thought’s sake? There was no one in the world, it seemed to her, who thought so much of others as she did. She analyzed her pains, her religious emotions, her very temptations, for them, and studied her own breathing that she should be able to tell them how they breathed. And what was the return? Bread, and not too much of that. She had studied her art as the painter, the sculptor, and the musician study, making a science of it, and not one in a hundred looked on it as any more than an idle and facile play. She had felt her way, by a natural gift and an acquired power, into the depths of souls, and had led them out alive into the light; yet how many an ignorant critic and shallow moralist had set up his wooden or card-paper model for her to follow!