However, she went on working placidly at her hack-work, and living

for little Dolly. Her one wish now was to make Dolly press toward

the mark for the prize of the high calling she herself by mere

accident had missed so narrowly. Her own life was done; Alan's

death had made her task impossible; but if Dolly could fill her

place for the sake of humanity, she would not regret it. Enough

for her to have martyred herself; she asked no mercenary palm and

crown of martyrdom.

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

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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.




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