At
the same time she tried her hand at a short story--the story of an
American girl who went to Paris to study art, refused to alter her mode
of life to suit foreign ideas of female propriety, displayed exceptional
talent as an artist, and finally married a fine-spirited young American,
to the utter discomfiture of a French member of the nobility, who had
begun by insulting her and ended with making her an offer of marriage.
This she sent to the _Eagle_, the other Benham newspaper, for its Sunday
edition.
It took her a month to compose this story, and after a week she received
it back with a memorandum to the effect that it was one-half too long,
but intimating that in a revised form it would be acceptable. This was a
little depressing, especially as it arrived at a time when the novelty
of her occupation had worn off and she was realizing the limitations of
her present life. She had begun to miss the advantages of a free purse
and the importance of a domestic establishment. She possessed her
liberty, and was fulfilling her mission as a social force, but her life
had been deprived of some of its savor, and, though she was thankful to
be rid of Babcock, she felt the lack of an element of personal devotion
to herself, an element which was not to be supplied by mere admiration
on the part of Mrs.
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