"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 encyclopædia! 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."