ut she stood there slim and defiant,
and stated her reasons.

"We need money. I don't see how we can get through a winter like the
last. I can't keep my self-respect if we go on living as we did last
winter."

"Haven't you any pride, Anne?"

"I have self-respect."

She left the room a conqueror. After she had gone the three women talked
about her. They did not say it openly, but they felt that there was
really an ordinary streak in Anne. Otherwise she would not have wanted
to work in an office.

There was, however, nothing to be done. Anne was twenty-one. She was to
get a hundred dollars a month. In spite of herself, Amy felt a throb of
the heart as she thought of what that hundred dollars would mean to
them.

Murray Flint was much perturbed when he heard of Anne's decision. He
wrote to her that of course she knew that there was no reason why she
should go into an office--his home and hearthstone were hers. She wrote
back that she should never marry! After that, Murray felt, with Amy and
Ethel and Aunt Elizabeth, that there was an ordinary streak in Anne!

When he arrived in August at Aunt Elizabeth's he was astonished at the
change in Amy. She looked really very young as she came to meet him, and
Aunt Elizabeth's house was a perfect setting for her charms. Murray was
very fond of Aunt Elizabeth's house. It was an ancient, stately edifice,
and within there were the gold-framed portraits of men and women with
noses like Amy's and Aunt Elizabeth's.

Murray had missed Amy very much and he told her so.

"It was a point of honor for me to ask Anne again. But when I thought I
was going to lose you I learned that my life would be empty without
you."

He really believed what he was telling her. If Amy did not believe it
she made no sign. She was getting much more than she expected, and she
accepted him graciously and elegantly, as became a daughter of the
Merrymans.

It was when he told Anne of his engagement to Amy that Murray again
offered her a home. "There will always be a place for Amy's sisters,
Anne."

"You are very good, Murray--but I can't."

She had said the same thing to Maxwell, who had come hot-footed to tell
her that her letter had made no difference in his feeling for her.

"How could you think it, Anne? My darling, you are making a mountain of
a molehill!"

She had been tremulous but firm. "I've got to have my--self-respect,
Max."

Because he understood men he understood her. And when he h