“Wouldn’t it be just a little dull?”
“Yes, I suppose it is, but it seems to me a suitable place where two young women may meditate on what they are going to do with their lives.”
“Yes, that’s an important question for the two. I say, Dorothy, let’s take the other side of the river, and enter Vassar College. Then we should at least have some fun, and there would be some reasonably well-educated people to speak to.”
“Oh, you wish to use your lately acquired scientific knowledge in order to pass the examinations; but, you see, I have had no tutor to school me in the mysteries of lime-burning and the mixing of cement. Now, you have scorned my side of the river, and I have objected to your side of the river. That is the bad beginning which, let us hope, makes the good ending. Who is to arbitrate on our dispute?”
“Why, we’ll split the difference, of course.”
“How can we do that? Live in a house-boat on the river like Frank Stockton’s ‘Budder Grange’?”
“No, settle in the city of New York, which is practically an island in the Hudson.”
“Would you like to live in New York?”
“Wouldn’t I! Imagine any one, having the chance, living anywhere else!”
“In a hotel, I suppose—the Holldorf for choice.”