Laurel drew her hand away. “Oh, come, Mother. Don’t be silly. Don’t be a goose.”

3

A STENOGRAPHER! Laurel, her beautiful Laurel, shut up all day long in an office, reeking with tobacco smoke? Laurel the servant of a lot of men, taking dictation, taking orders? Laurel wearing paper cuffs and elastic bands and pencils in her hair; eating lunch out of a box with a lot of other girls, also wearing paper cuffs and elastic bands and pencils in their hair? No. No. It mustn’t be. It simply mustn’t be. Why, even she herself wouldn’t have been a stenographer.

Stella lay wide awake in the bed beside Laurel. It was nearly two o’clock. Laurel had slept like a baby—sweetly, steadily, all night long so far. She hadn’t changed her position. Twice Stella had risen and lit the light to see what time it was, had stopped a moment by the side of the bed, and gazed down upon Laurel.

Like a lovely Sleeping Beauty, she is. Oh, my God, she can’t be a stenographer! It would be like planting an orchid between the cobblestones at the corner of Washington and Winter Streets to stick Laurel in front of a typewriter, inside of one of the big grimy office-buildings downtown. She’d get all dust and dirt and trampled and spoiled in no time. She mustn’t be sacrificed like that! Why, New York would go simply crazy about Lollie. It would exclaim over her, oh-and-ah over her, like the people at the Horticultural Shows over some new amazing flower. Oh, gracious, what can I do? What can I do to save the kid?

She must do something, and quick—now. Laurel was all ready to show now. Next year, the year after—too late. She’d be touched, handled, brown on the edges. There’d be a story about her—a tale. “She was once a stenographer, you know.” People would whisper, “Really! You don’t say!” And eyebrows would be raised. That must not occur. Whatever it cost, by whatever means, that must be avoided.