re or on the railroad or anywhere, and not lose
respectability. Oh, I _hate_ being a woman."

Sec. 3

Una had been trying to persuade her father's old-time rival, Squire
Updegraff, the real-estate and insurance man, that her experience with
Captain Golden would make her a perfect treasure in the office. Squire
Updegraff had leaped up at her entrance, and blared, "Well, well, and
how is the little girl making it?" He had set out a chair for her and
held her hand. But he knew that her only experience with her father's
affairs had been an effort to balance Captain Golden's account-books,
which were works of genius in so far as they were composed according to
the inspirational method. So there was nothing very serious in their
elaborate discussion of giving Una a job.

It was her last hope in Panama. She went disconsolately down the short
street, between the two-story buildings and the rows of hitched
lumber-wagons. Nellie Page, the town belle, tripping by in canvas
sneakers and a large red hair-ribbon, shouted at her, and Charlie
Martindale, of the First National Bank, nodded to her, but these
exquisites were too young for her; they danced too well and laughed too
easily. The person who stopped her for a long curbstone conference about
the weather, while most of the town observed and gossiped, was the
fateful Henry Carson. The village sun was unusually blank and hard on
Henry's bald spot to-day. _Heavens!_ she cried to herself, in almost
hysterical protest, would she have to marry Henry?

Miss Mattie Pugh drove by, returning from district school. Miss Mattie
had taught at Clark's Crossing for seventeen years, had grown meek and
meager and hopeless. _Heavens!_ thought Una, would she have to be shut
into the fetid barn of a small school unless she married Henry?

"I _won't_ be genteel! I'll work in The Hub or any place first!" Una
declared. While she trudged home--a pleasant, inconspicuous,
fluffy-haired young woman, undramatic as a field daisy--a cataract of
protest poured through her. All the rest of her life she would have to
meet that doddering old Mr. Mosely, who was unavoidably bearing down on
her now, and be held by him in long, meaningless talks. And there was
nothing amusing to do! She was so frightfully bored. She suddenly hated
the town, hated every evening she would have to spend there, reading
newspapers and playing cards with her mother, and dreading a call from
Mr. Henry Carson.

She wanted--wanted so