, they
had sung carols, they had watched the Old Year out and the New Year in,
and their souls had been knit in a comradeship which had been a very
fine thing indeed for a boy like Randy and a girl like Becky.

There had been, too, about their friendship a rather engaging
seriousness. They had talked a great deal of futures. They had dreamed
together very great dreams. Their dreams had, of course, changed from
time to time. There had been that dream of Becky's when she first went
to the convent, that she wanted some day to be a nun like Sister
Loretto. The fact that it would involve a change of faith was thrashed
over flamingly by Randy. "It is all very well for an old woman, Becky.
But you'd hate it."

Becky had been sure that she would not hate it. "You don't know how
lovely she looks in the chapel."

"Well, there are other ways to look lovely."

"But it would be nice to be--good."

"You are good enough."

"I am not really, Randy. Sister Loretto says her prayers all day----"

"How often do you say yours?"

"Oh, at night. And in the mornings--sometimes----"

"That's enough for anybody. If you say them hard enough once, what more
can the Lord ask?"

He had been a rather fierce figure as he had flung his questions, but he
had not swerved her in the least from her thought of herself as a novice
in a white veil, and later as a full-fledged sister, with beads and a
black head-dress.

This dream had, in time, been supplanted by one imposed upon her by the
ambitions of a much-admired classmate.

"Maude and I are going to be doctors," Becky had announced as she and
Randy had walked over the fields with the hounds at their heels. "It's a
great opportunity for women, Randy, and we shall study in Philadelphia."

"Shall you like cutting people up?" he had demanded brutally.

She had shuddered. "I shan't have to cut them up very much, shall I?"

"You'll have to cut them up a lot. All doctors do, and sometimes they
are dead."

She had argued a bit shakily after that, and that night she had slept
badly. The next morning they had gone over it again. "You fainted when
the kitten's paw was crushed in the door."

"It was dreadful----"

"And you cried when I cut my foot with the hatchet and we were out in
the woods. And if you are going to be a doctor you'll have to look at
people who are crushed and cut----"

"Oh, please, Randy----"

Three days of such intensive argument had settled it. Becky decided that
it wa