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Allen, Grant, 1848-1899

"The Woman Who Did"


And she was happy in her life; as far as a certain tranquil sense
of duty done could make her, she was passively happy. Her kind of
journalism was so commonplace and so anonymous that she was spared
that worst insult of seeing her hack-work publicly criticised as
though it afforded some adequate reflection of the mind that
produced it, instead of being merely an index of taste in the minds
of those for whose use it was intended. So she lived for years, a
machine for the production of articles and reviews; and a devoted
mother to little developing Dolly.
On Dolly the hopes of half the world now centred.



XV.


Not that Herminia had not at times hard struggles and sore
temptations. One of the hardest and sorest came when Dolly was
about six years old. And this was the manner of it.
One day the child who was to reform the world was returning from
some errand on which her mother had sent her, when her attention was
attracted by a very fine carriage, stopping at a door not far from
their lodgings. Now Dolly had always a particular weakness for
everything "grand;" and so grand a turn-out as this one was rare in
their neighborhood.


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