“Yes.”
“And going in for the higher-ed., of course?”
“Just as sure—as sure!” she said firmly. “I don’t know just how, yet; but I mean to go to Rivercliff in the autumn.”
“Whew! That’s some school. I met some girls at college who had been there. Co-eds, you know.”
“Nice girls?”
“Awfully nice,” he declared. “They took two years at Rivercliff after high and then came to college. But the full course up there would put you ahead a whole lot, Beth. These girls I speak of were preparing for particular lines of work. If a girl wanted to be a teacher——”
“That is my goal, Larry,” Beth interrupted, so earnestly that she missed her step. “I must be a teacher. You know—papa isn’t rich. We have to scrimp a good deal. If I could teach I could help a lot.”
“Sure you could,” he agreed, with answering enthusiasm. “And, besides, a girl doesn’t get anywhere at all now if she hasn’t a pretty good education. You know how it is—a fellow likes to talk to a girl that can discuss the same things he can, and discuss them intelligently. Why, Beth,” and he laughed, “our great-grandmothers, who only knew how to sew and knit and bake and be domestic, would never get a chance to marry nowadays.”
“What nonsense you talk,” said Beth, dimpling. “Papa says that the nearest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I fancy that not all young men of our generation are dyspeptic and have to live on predigested health foods.”
“That is all right,” Larry said seriously. “But a fellow can hire a cook. He wants a wife who can be his mental companion.”