don't know how you managed to make up your mind to come to Redmond at
all, if you are really such an undecided person," said amused Priscilla.

"Bless your heart, honey, I didn't. It was father who wanted me to come
here. His heart was set on it--why, I don't know. It seems perfectly
ridiculous to think of me studying for a B.A. degree, doesn't it? Not
but what I can do it, all right. I have heaps of brains."

"Oh!" said Priscilla vaguely.

"Yes. But it's such hard work to use them. And B.A.'s are such learned,
dignified, wise, solemn creatures--they must be. No, _I_ didn't want
to come to Redmond. I did it just to oblige father. He IS such a duck.
Besides, I knew if I stayed home I'd have to get married. Mother wanted
that--wanted it decidedly. Mother has plenty of decision. But I really
hated the thought of being married for a few years yet. I want to have
heaps of fun before I settle down. And, ridiculous as the idea of my
being a B.A. is, the idea of my being an old married woman is still more
absurd, isn't it? I'm only eighteen. No, I concluded I would rather come
to Redmond than be married. Besides, how could I ever have made up my
mind which man to marry?"

"Were there so many?" laughed Anne.

"Heaps. The boys like me awfully--they really do. But there were only
two that mattered. The rest were all too young and too poor. I must
marry a rich man, you know."

"Why must you?"

"Honey, you couldn't imagine ME being a poor man's wife, could you? I
can't do a single useful thing, and I am VERY extravagant. Oh, no, my
husband must have heaps of money. So that narrowed them down to two.
But I couldn't decide between two any easier than between two hundred.
I knew perfectly well that whichever one I chose I'd regret all my life
that I hadn't married the other."

"Didn't you--love--either of them?" asked Anne, a little hesitatingly.
It was not easy for her to speak to a stranger of the great mystery and
transformation of life.

"Goodness, no. _I_ couldn't love anybody. It isn't in me. Besides I
wouldn't want to. Being in love makes you a perfect slave, _I_ think.
And it would give a man such power to hurt you. I'd be afraid. No, no,
Alec and Alonzo are two dear boys, and I like them both so much that I
really don't know which I like the better. That is the trouble. Alec
is the best looking, of course, and I simply couldn't marry a man who
wasn't handsome. He is good-tempered too, and has lovely, curly, black
h