"Gwyneth, darling, you are more beautiful than ever," said Millie, the Academy student, as she took her friend's hands and looked lovingly into her face. "You shall sit for me to-morrow, dear. But, stay, your countenance is more pensive. There are fresh lines of thought and care; you have a story to tell, darling. Now we will hear it."
Gwyneth did not tell the story; at least not the more important part. She explained that her father had been called away, and that she, finding the life dull, had resolved to see her former friends again. To Pennie that night the poor girl confided more.
Pennie was correspondent for two papers, reported for two more, was sub-editor of another.
"But I'm heartily sick of the Society trash!" she exclaimed; "of taking notes of nothing, and writing up everything not worthy a thought."
"What of your book?" asked Gwyneth. "Has that been a success?"
"Just where it was, half-finished. I get no time for real writing; scribbling for a living is my one occupation."
Millie's report was little better. Sometimes the girl had a little picture sold. She had a few pupils. But there was no incentive. Life for her, too, was a dull struggle for existence.
The third boarder was a widow of nineteen, without a penny and without a friend, Mrs. Gussey Gore, whose husband had run through his money and lost his health in twelve months, leaving her after a short year of wild expenditure, which the young couple mistook for happiness, alone in the world. Twelve hours a day Gussey Gore plied her needle to the order of the "Ladies' Work Association," and of Buckland and Joshua's in Bourke Street. She managed to pay for her board. The future she dared not anticipate.
