Poor Frankie! Doomed to stay there for how many weeks!
She tried in vain to think of some means of getting away. At first there were a dozen radiant vistas, possibilities of all sorts. She contemplated becoming a secretary, a writer, a doctor’s assistant, a teacher, or, as a last resort, the wife of an extraordinary man. It was a long time before she could realise of how little value she was, how undesired. She hadn’t even money for her fare to New York, and her answers to advertisements found in the city papers were always late and never regarded. She was amazed to find herself in this blind alley: her eager hands groped for some sort of outlet; she couldn’t believe that she was actually obliged to stay in Brownsville Landing.
It cannot be denied that she was a trial to the other two. She shirked her share of the housework and remained obstinately shut up in her room with her old school books. And every time they drove into the village she insisted upon stopping at the Carnegie Library and exchanging piles of books, keeping Minnie waiting an outrageous length of time. Minnie and her grandmother had each to take out cards so that she could get as many books as she could carry.
She used to cry, too, at night, and tell Minnie she couldn’t stand it. Some days she was scornful and silent, scarcely saw them except at meal times; then remorse would seize her and the next day she wouldn’t touch her books, but would work to the point of exhaustion cleaning the house. When she did bend her mind to such humble tasks she far surpassed Minnie. She was quick, thoroughgoing, altogether competent, and, when she wasn’t cross, she was a delight to the others, gay, endearing, irresistible.
They couldn’t understand, couldn’t see how her ardent spirit suffered. Her ambition, still so vague that she was not able to express it, was unintelligible to them. Sometimes she would confess to Minnie that she wanted to marry an explorer.
“Or someone like that. Someone awfully famous and yet not stuffy. Not anyone who sits down and works.”
And perhaps that same day she would say vehemently that she didn’t care a bit about getting married, ever. She wanted to be something on her own account. There wasn’t much chance now that she could be a doctor, but there were plenty of other things, useful and interesting.
Minnie often asked to be informed of the object of all the studying her sister did.
“I don’t know, exactly,” Frances would tell her, “only it’s some comfort to think I’m not slipping back.”