he's only sixteen and not nearly so pretty as Jenny, the men are all
crazy, as Miss Willy says, about her. But, somehow, it's different. Lucy
enjoys it, but it isn't her life. As for Jenny, she's still too young to
have taken shape, I suppose, but she has only one idea in her head and
that is going to college. She never gives a boy a thought."

"That's queer, because she promises already to be the most beautiful
girl in Dinwiddie."

"She is beautiful. I am quite sure that it isn't because she is my
daughter that I think so. But, all the same, I'm afraid she'll never be
as popular as Lucy is. She is so distant and overbearing to men that
they are shy of her."

"And you'll let her go to college?"

"If we can afford it--and now that Oliver hopes to get one of his plays
put on, we may have a little more money. But it seems such a waste to
me. I never saw that it could possibly do a woman any good to go to
college--though of course I always sympathized with your disappointment,
dear Susan. Jenny is bent on it now, but I feel so strongly that it
would be better for her to come out in Dinwiddie and go to parties and
have attention."

"And does Oliver feel that, too?"

"Oh, he doesn't care. Jenny is his favourite, and he will let her do
anything he thinks she has set her heart on. But he has never put his
whole life into the children's as I have done."

"But if she goes, will you be able to send Harry?"

"Of course, Harry's education must come before everything else--even
Oliver realizes that. Do you know, I've hardly bought a match for ten
years that I haven't stopped to ask myself if it would take anything
from Harry's education. That's why I've gone as shabby as this almost
ever since he was born--that and my longing to give the girls a few
pretty things."

"You haven't bought a dress for yourself since I can remember. I should
think you would wear your clothes out making them over."

The look in Virginia's face showed that the recollection Susan had
invoked was not entirely a pleasant one.

"I've done with as little as I could," she answered. "Only once was I
really extravagant, and that was when I bought a light blue silk which I
didn't have made up until years afterwards when it was dyed black. Dyed
things never hold their own," she concluded pensively.

"You are too unselfish--that is your only fault," said Susan
impulsively. "I hope they appreciate all you have been to them."

"Oh, they appreciate me," r