be able to
understand."

Katie's face was averted, but something in Ann's voice made her turn to
her. "I think it was wrong, Ann. There's no use in my pretending I don't.
I _can't_ understand this. But maybe I can understand some of the other
things better than you think."

"I left at six o'clock the next morning," Ann went back to it when
she was calmer. "And at the last minute I don't think I would have
had the courage to go if my father hadn't been snoring so. How silly
it all sounds!

"And the only reason I got on the train was that it would have taken
more courage to go back than to go on.

"Katie, some time I'll tell you all about it. How I felt when I got to
Chicago. How it seemed to shriek and roar. How I seemed just buried
under the noise. How I walked around the streets that day--frightened
almost to death--and yet, inside the fright, just crazy about it. And
how green I was!

"Nothing seemed to matter except going to grand opera. I didn't even have
sense enough to find a place to stay. I thought about it, but didn't know
how, and anyhow the most important thing was finding the things that
moved in the pictures--and sang in the box.

"I saw a woman go up to a policeman and ask him where something was and
he told her, so I did that, too. Asked him where you went to hear grand
opera. And he pointed. I was right there by it.

"I heard some people talking about going in to get tickets. So I thought
I had better get a ticket.

"But they didn't have any. They were all gone.

"When I came out I was almost crying. Then a smiling man outside stepped
up to me and said he had tickets and he'd let me have one for ten
dollars. I was so glad he had them! Ten dollars seemed a good deal--but I
didn't think much about it.

"Then I had my ticket and just two dollars left.

"But that night at the opera I didn't know whether I had two dollars, or
no dollars, or a thousand dollars. At first I was frightened because
everybody but me had on such beautiful clothes. But soon I was too crazy
about their clothes to care--and then after the music began--

"Oh, Katie! Suppose you'd always dreamed of something and never been
able to catch up with it. Suppose you'd not even been able to really
dream it, but just dream that it was, and then suppose it all came--No,
I can't tell you. You'd have to have lived in Centralia--and been a
minister's daughter.

"My heart sang more beautifully than the singers sang. 'Now you have
f