She was more than any other the friend who remained, but she was unknown to all the rest.

Once when she had discovered, as they called it, a new star, she used the expression that the chapel at last was full.
"Oh no," Stransom replied, "there is a great thing wanting for that! The chapel will never be full till a candle is set up before which all the others will pale.

It will be the tallest candle of all." Her mild wonder rested on him.

"What candle do you mean ?" "I mean, dear lady, my own." He had learned after a long time that she earned money by her pen, writing under a pseudonym she never disclosed in magazines he never saw.
She knew too well what he couldn't read and what she couldn't write, and she taught him to cultivate indifference with a success that did much for their good relations.

Her invisible industry was a convenience to him; it helped his contented thought of her, the thought that rested in the dignity of her proud obscure life, her little remunerated art and her little impenetrable home.