ring--I could work my
way through college easily----"

"I don't want you to go to college, Nancy," said Mrs. Prescott
irritably. "What in the world is the use of a whole lot of ologies and
isms--and ruining your looks over a lot of senseless analyzing and
dissecting and everything----"

"I won't be studying anything useless, Mother dearest. But don't you
see that it will be ever so much easier for me to get a position as a
teacher if I can show a Bachelor's degree instead of just a smattering
of French, or a thimbleful of ancient history?"

"There's no reason why you should think of becoming a teacher,"
answered Mrs. Prescott. "And I wish you wouldn't talk about it--it's
so dreadfully drab and gloomy."

"But I want to make my living in some way."

"If you and Alma marry well, there won't be any reason why you should
make your living."

"But, Mother, we can't count on chance, like that. Suppose Alma and I
never met a rich man whom we could love--we'd be helpless."

"A year at Miss Leland's will give both of you plenty of opportunities.
You'll meet girls there whom you ought to know, girls who will invite
you to their houses, through whom you'll meet eligible young men----"

"The expense of paying for board and tuition at Miss Leland's would be
the least of the digging we'd have to do into the family purse. We'd
be under obligations to people, which we would never be in a position
to repay--we'd be no better than plain, ordinary sponges. I--I
couldn't bear it. Besides, the fees at Miss Leland's are terribly
high. I could go to college for almost two years on what I'd pay for
one year at Miss Leland's--and all that we'd get at that school would
be a little French, a smattering of history, dancing and fudge parties."

"And extremely desirable acquaintances."

"But, Mother, we'd never be able to keep up with them on their own
scale of living," pleaded Nancy, with a hopeless conviction in her
heart that she was talking to the winds. "Girls like Elise
Porterbridge and Jane Whiteright have an allowance of a hundred a
month, and anything else they want, when they've spent it."

"You've got money on the brain, Nancy," said Alma, shaking her curls
off her face. "You are a regular old miser."

"Well, you're right, perhaps. I--I hate to, heaven knows, but we do
have to think about it, Alma. It's the poor gamblers who are always
counting on a lucky chance that are ruined. I want to be prepared for
the wors