In the chap­ter titled “Katharine Lee Bates,” set in Eng­land dur­ing the 1880s, Katie embarks on a dif­fi­cult voy­age aboard the *State of Nebras­ka*, arriv­ing bruised and melan­choly after part­ing from her loved ones. Despite her chal­leng­ing jour­ney, she finds solace in explor­ing Eng­lish libraries and the pic­turesque coun­try­side, dis­cov­er­ing a room in the British Muse­um bear­ing her sur­name, where her own book, *Rose and Thorn*, brings her delight. As she wan­ders through Goth­ic cathe­drals, she grap­ples with her faith, feel­ing unsure of her beliefs and wary of those who adhere to tra­di­tion­al the­ol­o­gy.

Mean­while, the Unit­ed States is under­go­ing dra­mat­ic changes due to new waves of immi­gra­tion, which spur fears about job com­pe­ti­tion and expose many work­ers to per­ilous con­di­tions. View­ing Amer­i­ca from her priv­i­leged posi­tion in Eng­land, Katie per­ceives the fragili­ty of the Amer­i­can demo­c­ra­t­ic ide­al.

Return­ing home after a trans­for­ma­tive year abroad, Katie emerges with renewed deter­mi­na­tion. She secures a master’s degree from Welles­ley, step­ping into her role as the head of her depart­ment. How­ev­er, she remains con­strained by soci­etal expec­ta­tions, lament­ing the dual bur­dens faced by women. Despite her aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ments, she finds her­self teth­ered to domes­tic respon­si­bil­i­ties, unlike her male cowork­ers.

At Welles­ley, an insti­tu­tion char­ac­ter­ized by its tal­ent­ed, edu­cat­ed women, Katie forms deep bonds with her col­leagues. It is here she meets Pro­fes­sor Katharine Coman, with whom she shares over two decades of com­pan­ion­ship. Their cor­re­spon­dence reflects a pro­found emo­tion­al con­nec­tion that some schol­ars inter­pret as roman­tic, while oth­ers remain uncer­tain due to the nature of female friend­ships of their time.

Dur­ing her time in Eng­land, Katie’s let­ters express her long­ing for Coman, declar­ing her emo­tion­al attach­ment even across the ocean. Coman, a pio­neer­ing his­to­ri­an focused on labor rights, pos­sess­es the stead­fast faith that Katie yearns for, lead­ing Katie to desire a sim­i­lar con­vic­tion in her beliefs, which often elude her grasp. In this chap­ter, the inter­play between per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al, as well as faith and doubt, is poignant­ly explored through Katie’s expe­ri­ences and rela­tion­ships.