“Father,” Betty spoke again after a pause during which she picked a flower within reach. “Father, don’t you think that a girl ought to take advantage of her opportunities?”
“Seems to me I’ve heard something like that, Betty.”
“Well, I’m serious, Father.”
“To just what advantages do you refer?”
“I’m thinking about school, you know, and it does seem as if there are so many things to do in these high school years, especially here in the city, that you’ll never have a chance to do again!”
“Things that you are not doing now, you mean?”
“Yes, Father. Unless you see it, you can’t realize what lovely things go on at school and you can’t help wanting to be in them!”
“What, for instance?”
“Well, there’s the music for one thing. If you get your lessons, you haven’t so much time for other things, but to be trained right here, where there’s a Symphony Orchestra and everybody knowing the best music and singing and playing it–it doesn’t seem right not to do it if you have any music in you at all. Ted Dorrance was talking about it the other day. He’s a junior this year, you know. He was with some of the girls and boys in a bunch of us, talking after school.
“I imagine that Ted gets his lessons, for he’s smart looking. I heard him talking to a boy the very first day I was in school, standing in line to sign up. He said he didn’t know what he was going to do, not much athletics only ‘swimming, of course.’ You ought to see Ted swim at a swimming meet. And dive! He can turn a somersault backwards and everything.