That night, still in her white organdie frock, with its whirligig design of too much Valenciennes lace, her hair worn high and revealing an unsuspectedly white nape of neck, Lilly regarded her parents across a little table-display of gifts.
"I feel so queer," she said, looking off through the chocolate-ochre wall paper, the reaction already set in. "So sort of—finished. Nothing to do."
MR. BECKER: "That was certainly a fine speech the president of the Board of Education made. You've something now that no one can take away from you. Knowledge is power."
"Two girls in our class are going to the University of Missouri, papa.
That's what I'd like to do—go to college."
"Don't spoil a good thing by trying to overdo it, Lilly. It is as bad for a young girl to permit herself to be educated into one of those bold, unwomanly woman's-rights girls as it is for her to be frivolous and empty-headed. When women get too smart they get unattractive."
"But, papa, girls are beginning more and more to go to college, and all women will be—suffrage—some day."
"Not womanly girls, Lilly."
"I always said that High School would be her ruination."
"I didn't learn it there, mamma. I always wanted to be something—"
"Well, you're a finished stenographer, aren't you? Why not go down to your father's office a couple of mornings a week?"