Patience Sparhawk and her Times

Patience was languid all summer, and lay about in the woods, when she could, reading little and thinking much. Her school books put away forever, she felt for the first time that she was a woman, but did not take as much interest in herself as she had thought she should. She speculated a good deal upon her future career as a newspaper woman, and expended two cents every morning upon the New York "Day. " But she forgot to study it in the new interest it created: she had just the order of mind to succumb to the fascination of the newspaper, and she read the "Day's" report of current history with a keener pleasure than even the great records of the past had induced. She longed for a companion with whom to talk over the significant tendencies of the age, and gazed upon Beverly Peele's dome-like brow with a sigh.

Once, in the Sunday issue, she came upon a column and a half devoted to Rosita, "The Sweetheart of the Public," "The Princess Royal of Opera Bouffe. " The description of the young prima donna's home life, personal characteristics, and footlight triumphs, was further embellished by a painfully _décolleté_ portrait, a lace night gown, a pair of wonderfully embroidered stockings, and a rosary.