ey would like? Some people are!" with an odd humorous laugh. "And it
is the dissatisfaction that stirs you up; makes you ambitious. What is
it that keeps up the dissatisfaction?" glancing at him with the smile
still on her parted lips, yet full of perplexity.

"The knowledge that you are capable of doing something better, finer. If
you were deficient in that, you could go to work cheerfully in the
factory. You would enjoy associating with the girls."

"And then having a beau and marrying," she laughed. "Oh, I like books so
much better, and knowing about the world."

"What of the examination papers. Have you found any time for them?"

"Oh, yes. There were some books in the library that helped. And such a
splendid encyclopaedia! I wrote them out once, and then I read a great
deal more, and wrote them over again. I'll give them to you, and you
must consider how good a chance I have of passing. Oh, if I should
fail!"

"You could go in later on. I do not think you will. I have wondered
about you so many times this summer, and I have always seen you under
the disadvantages of the Center, and the few helps you would have. You
might have written me a letter."

"Oh, did you mean that I should?"

She asked it in sweet, eager unconsciousness, which showed that it would
have been a pleasure. He had not suggested it from a wonder as to
whether Aunt Jane would approve.

"I should have enjoyed an answer about your new life," he replied with
interest. "I am very glad this happened to you instead of an uneventful
summer on the farm and retrograding, I am afraid. And you like
this"--old lady, he was about to say, but checked himself--"this Mrs.
Van Dorn."

"It's something more than _like_. I cannot describe it in any word, that
I know, unless it is like something I was reading a few days ago,
fascination. When she talks about the places and people she has seen it
seems as if I could listen forever. And then, you may think this queer,"
and she colored vividly, "sometimes I like Mrs. Dayton the best. I wish
I didn't change about so. It is the same with books. Am I very
inconstant, fickle?"

"If we couldn't change our minds, think what fossils we should soon be,"
and he laughed good-humoredly. "Yes, I should like to see her."

She started, then she came back a step. "I have not really talked over
the plan of--of earning my way with her," and her voice fell a little.
"Mrs. Dayton thought it best not to say anything until we had