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stantly urged her to come and abide. She had a friend whose
acquaintance she had made shortly before her father’s death,
who offered so high an example of useful activity that Isabel
always thought of her as a model. Henrietta Stackpole had
the advantage of an admired ability; she was thoroughly
launched in journalism, and her letters to the Interview-
er, from Washington, Newport, the White Mountains and
other places, were universally quoted. Isabel pronounced
them with confidence ‘ephemeral,’ but she esteemed the
courage, energy and good-humour of the writer, who,
without parents and without property, had adopted three
of the children of an infirm and widowed sister and was
paying their school-bills out of the proceeds of her literary
labour. Henrietta was in the van of progress and had clear-
cut views on most subjects; her cherished desire had long
been to come to Europe and write a series of letters to the
Interviewer from the radical point of view—an enterprise
the less difficult as she knew perfectly in advance what her
opinions would be and to how many objections most Euro-
pean institutions lay open. When she heard that Isabel was
coming she wished to start at once; thinking, naturally, that
it would be delightful the two should travel together. She
had been obliged, however, to postpone this enterprise. She
thought Isabel a glorious creature, and had spoken of her
covertly in some of her letters, though she never mentioned
the fact to her friend, who would not have taken pleasure
in it and was not a regular student of the Interviewer. Hen-
rietta, for Isabel, was chiefly a proof that a woman might
suffice to herself and be happy. Her resources were of the

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