"And you _like_ it! You are content to think of spending your life in a schoolroom, going over and over the same dull old books, Mary! How _can_ you?" But Mary could very easily, it appeared. "Why not, Dreda?" she inquired. "The books are not dull to me, and surely it is a noble and interesting life to hand on the lamp of learning from one generation to another. It's the work that appeals most to me. Ever since I was a child I have wished to be a schoolmistress." "Oh, well, I shouldn't mind it myself--for a time," Dreda conceded carelessly. "When one has suffered under the yoke, _it_ would be a kind of satisfaction to boss it oneself for a change. I'd quite like to be a headmistress--a horribly strict Head--and make all the girls c-c-ringe before me--for a term, say; but after that--no thank you! I want a wider scope for my life than a stupid old school-house." Mary smiled, in an elderly, forbearing fashion. "We are all different, dear Dreda. It would not do if we were made alike. You and I have not the same vocation." "No; I shall marry," announced Dreda, blandly unconscious of the inference of her words. "I am one of the old-fashioned womanly girls--(it says in the papers, `Would there were more of them!')--who shine best in their own homes. I'm not learned, and I don't pretend to be; but I can keep house, and order servants about, as well as anybody, and I intend to be very hospitable and give lots of dinners and parties and make my husband proud of me by being the best-dressed woman in the room, and so witty and charming that everything will go with a roar. That's all I want. I haven't an ambitious nature." Mary's long upper lip looked longer than ever as she listened to this egotistical tirade. She was a plain-looking girl, and the lack of humour in her composition made her somewhat dull and unattractive in manner; but she possessed great strength of character, and was never found lacking in the courage of her opinions. Her opinion at this moment was that Etheldreda Saxon needed a downright good snubbing, and she set herself to administer it without a qualm. "My dear Dreda, there is nothing in the world you understand as little as your own character. I never met a girl who was so blind to her own defects. Not ambitious! How can you say such a thing in the same breath as that in which you express your longing for admiration? One may be ambitious for unworthy aims as well as for worthy ones; and your desires are all for poor, worldly things which pass away, leaving no one better or wiser. It is false modesty to say you are not clever; you would not allow anyone else to make such a statement unchallenged. If you chose to exert yourself to overcome your faults of carelessness and frivolity, you might take a very fair average position among your companions."