y mastered all the country school near her home could teach
her. With six weeks of a summer Normal course she would be as well
prepared to teach as any of her sisters were, with the exception of
Mary, who had been able to convince her parents that she possessed two
college years' worth of "ability."

Kate laid no claim to "ability," herself; but she knew she was as
strong as most men, had an ordinary brain that could be trained, and
while she was far from beautiful she was equally as far from being
ugly, for her skin was smooth and pink, her eyes large and blue-gray,
her teeth even and white. She missed beauty because her cheekbones
were high, her mouth large, her nose barely escaping a pug; but she had
a real "crown of glory" in her hair, which was silken fine, long and
heavy, of sunshine-gold in colour, curling naturally around her face
and neck. Given pure blood to paint such a skin with varying emotions,
enough wind to ravel out a few locks of such hair, the proportions of a
Venus and perfect health, any girl could rest very well assured of
being looked at twice, if not oftener.

Kate sat on a log, a most unusual occurrence for her, for she was
familiar only with bare, hot houses, furnished with meagre necessities;
reeking stables, barnyards and vegetable gardens. She knew less of the
woods than the average city girl; but there was a soothing wind, a
sweet perfume, a calming silence that quieted her tense mood and
enabled her to think clearly; so the review went on over years of work
and petty economies, amounting to one grand aggregate that gave to each
of seven sons house, stock, and land at twenty-one; and to each of nine
daughters a bolt of muslin and a fairly decent dress when she married,
as the seven older ones did speedily, for they were fine, large,
upstanding girls, some having real beauty, all exceptionally
well-trained economists and workers. Because her mother had the
younger daughters to help in the absence of the elder, each girl had
been allowed the time and money to prepare herself to teach a country
school; all of them had taught until they married. Nancy Ellen, the
beauty of the family, the girl next older than Kate, had taken the home
school for the second winter. Going to school to Nancy Ellen had been
the greatest trial of Kate's life, until the possibility of not going
to Normal had confronted her.

Nancy Ellen was almost as large as Kate, quite as pink, her features
assembled in a m