Dorris kept her little room, and was neighborly as heretofore; but she was busy with her music, and had little time but her evenings; and now there was nobody to walk home with Desire to Shubarton Place, if she stayed in Aspen Street to tea.  She came sometimes, and stayed all night; but that was dreary for Helena, who never remembered to shut the piano or cover up the canary, or give the plants in the bay window their evening sprinkle, after the furnace heat had been drying them all day.

Kenneth Kincaid came down for his Sundays with Dorris, and his work at the Mission; a few times he called in at Uncle Oldways’ after tea, when the family was all together; but they saw him very seldom; he gave those Sunday evenings mostly to needed rest, and to quiet talk with Dorris.

Desire might have gone to the Mission this winter, easily enough, after all.  Agatha and Florence and Glossy Megilp were not by to make wondering eyes, or smile significant smiles; but there was something in herself that prevented; she knew that it would be more than half to get, and she still thought she had so little to give!  Besides, Kenneth Kincaid had never asked her again, and she could not go to him and say she would come.

Desire Ledwith began to have serious question of what life was ever going to be for her.  She imagined, as in our early years and our first gray days we are all apt to imagine, that she had found out a good deal that it was not going to be.

She was not going to be beautiful, or accomplished, or even, she was afraid, agreeable; she found that such hard work with most people.  She was not ever—­and that conclusion rested closely upon these foregoing—­to be married, and have a nice husband and a pretty house, and go down stairs and make snow-puddings and ginger-snaps of a morning, and have girls staying with her, and pleasant people in to tea; like Asenath Scherman.  She couldn’t write a book,—­that, perhaps, was one of her premature decisions, since nobody knows till they try, and the books are lying all round, in leaves, waiting only to be picked up and put together,—­or paint a picture; she couldn’t bear parties, and clothes were a fuss, and she didn’t care to go to Europe.

She thought she should rather like to be an old maid, if she could begin right off, and have a little cottage out of town somewhere, or some cosy rooms in the city.  At least, she supposed that was what she had got to be, and if that were settled, she did not see why it might not be begun young, as well as married life.  She could not endure waiting, when a thing was to be done.

“Aunt Frances,” she said one day, “I wish I had a place of my own.  What is the reason I can’t?  A girl can go in for Art, and set up a studio; or she can go to Rome, and sculp, and study; she can learn elocution, and read, whether people want to be read to or not; and all that is Progress and Woman’s Rights; why can’t she set up a home?”