e married, always had been, but didn't find it out before. He said he
had always adored me. And I drew out my note-book, and showed him the
first page,--Doctor Daniel Brooks, O. K. And every other name in the
book was checked off.

"Dan was jubilant." Connie's voice trailed away slowly, and her
earnest fine eyes were cloudy.

"An engagement," cried Carol, springing up.

"No," said Connie slowly, "a blunder."

"A blunder," faltered Carol, falling back. "You did it on purpose to
make him propose, didn't you?"

"Yes, and he proposed, and we were engaged. But it was just a blunder.
It was not Dan I wanted. Carol, every woman feels like that at times.
She is full of that great magnificent ideal of home, and husband, and
little children. It seems the finest thing in the world, the only
flawless life. She can't resist it, for the time being. She feels
that work is silly, that success is tawdry, that ambition is wicked.
It is dangerous, Carol, for if she gets the opportunity, or if she can
make the opportunity, she is pretty sure to seize it. I believe that
is why so many marriages are unhappy,--girls mistake that natural
woman-wish for love, and they get married, and then--shipwreck."

Carol sat silent.

"Yes," said David sympathetically, "I think you are right. You were
lucky to escape."

"I knew that evening, that one little evening of our engagement, that
having a home and a husband, and even a little child like Julia, would
never be enough. Something else had to come first. And it had not
come. I went to bed and cried all night, so sorry for Dan for I knew
he loved me,--but not sorry enough to make me do him such a cruel
injustice. The next morning I told him, and that afternoon I returned
to Chicago.

"I have thought a whole lot more of my job since then."

"But why couldn't you love him?" asked Carol impatiently. "It seems
unreasonable, Connie. He is nice enough for anybody, and you were just
ripe and ready for it."

Connie shrugged her shoulders. "Why didn't you love somebody else
besides David?" she asked, and laughed at the quick resentment that
flashed to Carol's eyes.

"Well," concluded Connie, "God certainly wanted a few old maids to
leaven the earth, and I think I have the making for a good leavener.
So I write stories, and let other women wash the little Julias' faces,"
she added, laughing, as Julia, unrecognizably dirty, entered with a
soup can full of medicine she had painstak