undoubtedly be the best thing in life for one, and one is likely to see
it coming around the corner at almost any minute."

"That's very, very true." It was Grace who spoke. "Don't you remember
how I worried about finding my work, and it walked directly up to me and
introduced itself on Commencement day?"

"I never dreamed that the stage would put me through college and be my
work afterward," broke in Anne. "When first I went to Oakdale I supposed
I had left it behind forever. But it must have been my destiny after
all."

"I guess it's just about as well in the long run not to worry about what
your work is going to be until it knocks at your door," observed
Elfreda. "Children are always planning and talking about what they're
going to do and be when they grow up; then they always do something
different. What do you suppose I used to say I was going to be when I
grew up?"

"Some perfectly absurd thing," anticipated Miriam. Eight pairs of amused
eyes fixed themselves expectantly on Elfreda.

"Well," Elfreda chuckled reminiscently, "my aim and ambition was to be a
cook. Not because I was so deeply in love with cooking, but because I
liked to eat. No wonder I was fat. I used to haunt the kitchen on baking
days and shriek with an outraged stomach afterward. The shrieking
occurred most frequently in the middle of the night. Then Ma would come
to my rescue, and I'd be forbidden to sample the baking again. So to
console myself in my banishment I'd resolve that when I grew up I'd be a
cook and live in a kitchen all the time. I reasoned that if I _was_ a
cook I'd know how to make everything in the world to eat and could have
what I pleased. Besides no one would dare tell me I couldn't have this
or that. This was all very consoling during the times I had to keep out
of the kitchen. Generally in about a week's time Ma would relent, and,
as our cook was fond of me, I'd be reinstated in my beloved realm of
eats. But it was during these periods of exile that my ambition always
rose to fever heat. Then our old cook got married, and I didn't like our
new one. She didn't appreciate my companionship on baking days. Our old
cook had always encouraged me in my ambition. She used to tell me long
tales about the places where she had worked and the cooking feats she
had performed. The new cook said I was a nuisance, and complained to Ma.
So my ambition died for lack of encouragement, but my appetite didn't. I
became an outlaw instead an