It was a wearisome and vexatious thing, she said to herself very often, this barrier of the millions beyond which she must not even let her fancy float, and which encompassed her solitude like a prison wall. Often, too, she approached the point of meditating revolt, but only to realize with a fresh sigh that the thought was hopeless. What could she do? If the people of her own class, even with the advantages of amiable manners, cleanliness, sophisticated speech, and refined surroundings, failed to interest her, it was certain enough that the others would be even less tolerable. And she for whose own protection these impalpable defences against unpleasant people, adventurers, fortune-hunters, and the like, had all been reared, surely she ought to be the last in the world to wish them levelled. And then she would see, of course, that she did not wish this; yet, all the same, it was very, very dull! There must be whole troops of good folk somewhere whom she could know with pleasure and gain--nice women who would like her for herself, and clever men who would think it worth their while to be genuine with her, and would compliment her intelligence by revealing to it those high thoughts, phrased in glowing language, of which the master sex at its best is reputed to be capable--if only they would come in her way. But there were no signs betokening their advent, and she did not know where to look for them, and could not have sallied forth in the quest if she had known; and oh, but this was a weary world, and riches were mere useless rubbish, and life was a mistake! Patient, soft-eyed Ethel was the one to whom such of these repinings against existence as found their way into speech were customarily addressed. She was sympathetic enough, but hers was a temperament placid as it was tender, and Kate could do everything else save strike out sparks from it when her mood was for a conflagration. As for the mother, she knew in a general way that Kate had a complaining and unsatisfied disposition, and had always had it, and accepted the fact much as she did that of Ethel’s poor health--as something which could not be helped, and therefore need not be worried about. Hence, she was but rarely made the confidante of her elder daughter’s feelings, but Kate occasionally railed at destiny in the hearing of Miss Tabitha Wilcox, whom she liked sometimes much more than at others, but always enough to have a certain satisfaction in mildly bullying her.