"But can't a--" Missy blushed; she'd almost said, "a pretty girl." "Can't
that kind of girl be--intellectual, too?"

"The saints forbid!" ejaculated Mr. Briggs with fervour.

"But don't you think that everyone ought to try--to enlarge one's field
of vision?"

At that Mr. Briggs threw back his head and laughed a laugh of
unrestrained delight.

"Oh, it's too funny!" he chortled. "That line of talk coming from a girl
who looks like you do!"

Even at that disturbed moment, when she was hearing sacrilege aimed
at her most cherished ideals--perilously swaying ideals, had she but
realized it--Missy caught the pleasing significance of his last phrase,
and blushed again. Still she tried to stand up for those imperilled
ideals, forcing herself to ask:

"But surely you admire women who achieve--women like George Eliot and
Frances Hodgson Burnett and all those?"

"I'd hate to have to take one of them to a dance," said Mr. Briggs.

Missy turned thoughtful; there were sides to "achievement" she
hadn't taken into consideration. "Speaking of dances," Mr. Briggs was
continuing, "my aunt's going to give Louise and me a party before we
go--maybe Saturday night."

A party! Missy felt a thrill that wasn't professional.

Mr. Briggs leaned closer, across the little table. "If you're not
already booked up," he said, "may I call for you Saturday night?"

Missy was still disturbed by some of the things Mr. Briggs had said. But
it was certainly pleasant to have a visiting young man--a young man who
lived in Keokuk and travelled in California and attended college in the
East--choose her for his partner at his own party.

Later that night at the Beacon office, after she had turned in her
report of the Presbyterian ladies' fete, she lingered at her desk. She
was in the throes of artistic production:

"Mr. Archibald Briggs of Keokuk is visiting Mr. and Mrs. Paul Bonner."

That was too bald; not rich enough. She tried again:

"Mr. Archibald Briggs of Keokuk, Iowa, is visiting at the residence of
Mr. and Mrs. Paul Bonner on Maple Avenue."

Even that didn't lift itself up enough out of the ordinary. Missy
puckered her brows; a moist lock fell down and straggled across her
forehead. With interlineations, she enlarged:

"Mr. Archibald Briggs, who has been travelling in California and the
Far West, on his way to his home in Keokuk, Iowa, is visiting at the
residence of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Bonner in Maple Avenue."

An anxious scrutiny