"I suppose you know, young lady, that you are to come to the city this fall and enter high school. Both Mr. and Mrs. Quinn know of it and have agreed that it is the thing for you to do."
Mary Lee turned her happy, joyful face first toward Dr. Anderson and then toward Aunt Madge and Mr. and Mrs. Quinn.
"And if I go," she spoke slowly as if she were realizing what it all meant, "I shall be with Ruth and Letty and the other girls and I can be at the Campfire Girls' meetings and see Bobbie and, oh, ever so many other things, can't I?"
Then her face clouded suddenly.
"But won't Mrs. Quinn need me here?" she asked. "Oh, I'm sure she will, and it's wicked for me to think of anything else. And anyway, I love it here, so much."
"I'll not need you, my dear, except for your smiles and cheerfulness," said Mrs. Quinn from the kitchen. "You can just make up your mind you are going." And Mrs. Quinn spoke very decidedly.
"You see," added Aunt Madge, "you really need the schooling. You are getting older and there are things you must learn and which you cannot acquire except in school. You must have an education to get on in the world."
"By the way," interrupted the doctor, "has Mary Lee ever thought of what she is going to be when she grows up?"
Everyone in the room looked at the girl expectantly.
"When I grow up," said Mary Lee, speaking in a way which showed she had made up her mind long ago, "I am going to be a nurse—a Red Cross nurse. In the meantime I am going to be a Red Cross Girl."