Explore "The Fruit of the Tree" by Edith Wharton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
JUSTINE was pacing the long library at Lynbrook, between the caged sets of standard authors.
She felt as much caged as they: as much a part of a conventional stage-setting totally unrelated to the action going on before it. Two weeks had passed since her return from Philadelphia; and during that time she had learned that her usefulness at Lynbrook was over. Though not unwelcome, she might almost call herself unwanted; life swept by, leaving her tethered to the stake of inaction; a bitter lot for one who chose to measure existence by deeds instead of days. She had found Bessy ostensibly busy with a succession of guests; no one in the house needed her but Cicely, and even Cicely, at times, was caught up into the whirl of her mother's life, swept off on sleighing parties and motor-trips, or carried to town for a dancing-class or an opera matinee.