“I know why you didn’t answer his letters. I know mighty well! Of course you couldn’t answer his letters! Of course you couldn’t, with him in college right across the river, here, likely—no, sure, to look you up in this hole, and find out we didn’t know any of his Back Bay friends, not a single one of the young ladies whose dances he’s been ushering at! Oh, I’ve seen his name in the lists in the papers, too. I’ve got eyes, and I’ve just suffered for you, Lollie. Of course you couldn’t write to him and have him come here, and find out how we live, and what sort of a freak I am—”

“Mother!”

“That’s all right. I know. I’m no fool, Laurel. Oh, Lollie, please—please, go to your father just for a little while—just for a year or so, just long enough—”

“No, Mother. I’m not going.”

Stella sank down in her chair. It was useless, futile to beat herself against this soft child’s will once she had set it up. Experience had taught Stella that a big buzzing fly is as ineffective in breaking through a plate-glass barrier.

“Well,” gloomily, “what are you going to do with yourself, then? You can’t hang around a five-roomed apartment all your life, can you, reading two library books a week, and practicing on a piano two hours a day?” (Laurel had not taken any courses this winter.) “What are you going to do to amuse yourself, I’d like to know?”

“I’ve got a plan,” nodded Laurel, smiling.

“Humph.”

“I must have something to do, of course. Busy people are always the happiest. I’m going to be very busy. I’m going to be a stenographer, Mother.”

“A what?” gasped Stella.

“A stenographer. I’ve thought it all out.”

“A stenographer! A stenographer!” Stella repeated, and a third time, “A stenographer!”

If Laurel had said that she was going to be a German spy, Stella couldn’t have been more shocked.

“Yes, Mother dear, a stenographer. Don’t you see it’s the one thing I can be, and live along here with you, and keep up our nice times together during evenings, at the theater and the movies? And have Sundays with you, and holidays, and nights? I’m going to start right in, next week—this week, if I can—at the very best business college there is in this city, and work hard. It’s going to be lots of fun!”

“Oh, no, Laurel,” Stella broke out. “Not that! Not that! Please. Please.” Her voice pleaded, her eyes beseeched, implored. “You wouldn’t do that. Say you wouldn’t. Not you. It would break my heart. Say you wouldn’t, Dearie. Please—please.” She grasped hold of Laurel’s hand. “Lollie, for my sake! It would kill me, Lollie!”