It was the perennial
freshness of Miss Birdseye's faith that had had such a contagion for
these modern maidens, the unquenched flame of her transcendentalism, the
simplicity of her vision, the way in which, in spite of mistakes,
deceptions, the changing fashions of reform, which make the remedies of
a previous generation look as ridiculous as their bonnets, the only
thing that was still actual for her was the elevation of the species by
the reading of Emerson and the frequentation of Tremont Temple. Olive
had been active enough, for years, in the city-missions; she too had
scoured dirty children, and, in squalid lodging-houses, had gone into
rooms where the domestic situation was strained and the noises made the
neighbours turn pale. But she reflected that after such exertions she
had the refreshment of a pretty house, a drawing-room full of flowers, a
crackling hearth, where she threw in pine-cones and made them snap, an
imported tea-service, a Chickering piano, and the _Deutsche Rundschau_;
whereas Miss Birdseye had only a bare, vulgar room, with a hideous
flowered carpet (it looked like a dentist's), a cold furnace, the
evening paper, and Doctor Prance. Olive and Verena were present at
another of her gatherings before the winter ended; it resembled the
occasion that we described at the beginning of this history, with the
difference that Mrs.
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