She had accepted the appointment to the college corps of instructors with the deepest gratification, and she looked forward longingly to the opportunities it would give her for special work and to the surety of advancement that would follow. But her heart misgave her not a little as she thought of the great joy it would give her father and mother should she decide to stay near them in California, and of the grief that her mother would try to dissemble if she should return to the East.
Well, she would not decide the question now, and she put it from her as she cast a careless eye over her fellow travellers, let it rest for a moment on the two men in the section in front of her own and then turned to her book. Alternately reading, looking at the passing landscape, and now and then lapsing into reverie, her attention was so withdrawn from her surroundings that she was not aware that one of the men in front had turned several times and allowed a casual glance to pass from her down the row of heads behind her. Nor did she notice, when they returned from an hour's absence in the smoker, that he sat down in the front seat of their section.
"You don't mind riding backward?" commented his companion.
"I 'm not particularly stuck on it, but just now I want to look at that girl in the section behind us. It's good for the eyes to rest on such a splendid creature as she is."
"I 'll come over there with you and we 'll study her together," the other replied, as he changed his seat.
"Is n't she a fine specimen?" said the first. "She 's five feet nine if she 's an inch,—I noticed her when she got on at Philadelphia,—broad-shouldered and deep-chested and clear-skinned. And that glow in her cheeks rivals the roses her friends gave her. How old do you guess her, Wilson?"
"I 'd never try guessing such a problem as that! She's evidently one of the new women—you can tell that by her looks. And they never show their age, maybe because they don't think about it. This girl might be twenty, perhaps a year or two more, if you judge by her face. But if you take her expression into account—these women who do things always look as if they 'd had an experience of life that in former days they could n't acquire under forty. Well, you might split the difference and say she 's thirty."
"I don't think so. I 'd guess her under twenty-five. And she probably won't look a day older than she does now for the next fifteen years."
"I don't know about that, Adams. If she's a school-teacher she 'll get more or less sharp-featured or anxious-faced and have wrinkles and crow's-feet. And those are things that do not aid and abet a woman in forgetting her birthdays."
"But she is n't a school-teacher, Wilson. She has n't got the unmistakable school-ma'am look. I 've been wondering what she is, and I don't make it out. I don't think she 's a doctor, because she has n't got the professional cast of countenance, and she 's too carefully dressed."