Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3CHAPTER III. Dkosee's Philosophy. "Whosoever will be free let him not desire or dread that which it is in the power of others either to withhold or to inflict: otherwise he is a slave."—Epictetus. Owing to Drosee'a illness the delayed first meeting of the u Study Club," as it came to call itself, was a very informal one, and held, not at her home, but at Mrs. Fielding's. " How do yon get on at home, Jo ?" she privately inquired of her sister on that first evening of her return to the parlor and to society. The gentlemen had not yet come in, Mrs. Fielding was making her toilet, and Jo sat alone by Drosee's sofa. " I feel ashamed to lie here so Dozily and comfortably, and leave you to meet the domestic discomforts as you may." * " Why, I'm sure you have had the worst of it, child," Jo said cheerily. " Would yon take all human afflictions on your own shoulders, you Atlas, you! 1 [00] think the hurt you have sustained is enough for one person." " But I have had only the hurt," Drosee said, quite seriously. " And you have had a dozen things to endure." " Oh, as to papa, lie goes round to the Statham House so much to play whist with some intimates he has there, that ho has been very little on my mind. He did not groan a groan the last time I asked him for some money, and he is really interested in the play he is writing; he has read me two acts of it—don't look so pitiful, it was much better than the last—and he expects to get it brought out in the fall—has really some encouragement." And Josephns looked with cheerful confidence into her sister's face. " I'm all right," she said, " only you go on getting well, and come buck as soon as you can. Do you know that you have made another conquest during your sickness ?" " What do you mean ?" Drosee exclaimed, with a faint, hot blu...