"Be a teacher, then."
"M.P.! I never want to hear a date or add up a column of figures again."
"Laura!"
"It's the solemn truth. I'm fed up with all those blessed things."
"Fancy not having a single wish!"
"Wish? ... oh, I've tons of wishes. First I want to be with Evvy again. And then, I want to see things—yes, that most of all. Hundreds and thousands of things. People, and places, and what they eat, and how they dress, and China, and Japan ... just tons."
"You'll have to hook a millionaire for that, my dear."
"And perhaps you'll write a book about your travels for us stay-at-homes."
"Gracious! I shouldn't know how to begin. But you'll send me all you write—all YOUR books—won't you, Cupid? And, M. P., you'll let me come and see you get your degrees—every single one."
With these and similar promises the three girls parted. They never met again. For a time they exchanged letters regularly, many-sheeted letters, full of familiar, personal detail. Then the detail ceased, the pages grew fewer in number, the time-gap longer. Letters in turn gave place to mere notes and postcards, scribbled in violent haste, at wide intervals. And ultimately even these ceased; and the great silence of separation was unbroken. Nor were the promises redeemed: there came to Laura neither gifts of books nor calls to be present at academic robings. Within six months of leaving school, M. P. married and settled down in her native township; and thereafter she was forced to adjust the rate of her progress to the steps of halting little feet. Cupid went a-governessing, and spent the best years of her life in the obscurity of the bush.