"But you are not going to?" he broke in, earnestly.
"I'd love to," she answered, calmly. "But I'm too big a coward. I'd never dare stand up before the people in a great big theatre and feel they were all looking at me."
"I'm glad you're not going to," he declared.
"It would be too delightful for anything!" she asserted; "but I'd never have the courage. I know I wouldn't, so I've given up the idea. I'll finish my course at the college, and get my diploma, and then I'll be a teacher—that is, if I can get an appointment. But it isn't easy if you haven't any influence; and father doesn't take any interest in politics, and he doesn't know any of the trustees of this district, and I can't see how I'm ever to get into a school. Now Mr. O'Rourke could help me if he wanted—"
"The sparrow-cop?" interrupted the young Southwesterner. "Why, what has he got to do with the public schools?"
"Mr. O'Rourke has a great deal of influence in this ward, I can tell you that," she returned. "He has a pull on more than one of the trustees. If he were to back me, I'd get my position sure! And maybe I had better go to Rose and ask her for her father's influence."
They were now almost in the centre of that part of the church-yard which lies above the church, and behind the monument to the American prisoners who died during the British occupancy of New York. The afternoon service was about to begin, and the solemn tones of the organ were audible where they stood.
It seemed to Filson Shelby that the time had come for him to speak.
He swallowed a lump in his throat, and began.
"Miss Edna," he said, hesitatingly, "why do you want to be a school-teacher?"