"I didn't so much mean books. But you see, John, we've lived rather carelessly. We've not been very conventional, we don't know very many people, and--maybe--we don't know much how things are _done_, you see. Now suppose we were giving a dinner, and you had to take out the guest of honor--" "Nonsense! I reckon any guest'd feel honored enough to come to my house. I'm not worrying about that. Cash in the bank is the main thing for the guest of honor. As for the girl, she'll have as much education as we had, and that's enough." "But I want her to be a lady, John." "Can't she be?" "I'll want her to marry well, John." "Won't she? If she has money, can't she?" "But I want her to be prized for herself, for what she is." "She'll be our daughter, and won't that be enough?" "But herself!" "She's our girl. I don't see where she'd find better parents." "I was just thinking--about her education--that a little finishing would help her. We wouldn't always live just as we are living now, and she ought to be prepared for better things. We read about things, but what do we know about them? Grace ought to know." "I don't really join in your anxiety, Mrs. Rawn," said he largely, "but that'll all come, if it's needful." "It's needful now. Grace'll be a young woman before long. You see--" she flushed painfully as she spoke--"I don't want to see her grow up awkward. I don't want her to feel as though she hadn't been used to things, you know--to be ashamed of herself and her--her parents. Not that I care so much for myself--" There were tears in her eyes--tears of reaction, of hope however badly founded. She had toiled long and patiently. "Why, what's the matter, Laura?" asked her husband. "I'm getting to be almost old, John--I'm almost an old lady now! I've got gray hairs. I'm forty-five." He shook her by the shoulders playfully. "Nonsense! We're almost of an age, and I'm just beginning life. Grace is only a child." "She's eighteen past. That's why I asked you how soon--tell me, have they really raised your salary, John? If we could only have two thousand dollars a year it would be all in the world I should ask." "Salary!" he guffawed. "Two thousand dollars a year! Say that much a month, a week, a day!" "You're crazy, John! What do you mean?" Indeed, some doubt of his sanity now began to enter her mind. "Read in the papers about the daily incomes of those big chaps, those really great men back East, the fellows who run things. Every one of them made it out of nothing--not one of them had any one to give him a start. We've no right to say that I can't do as well as they have. The start's the thing." "But what has happened, then? I never saw you so stirred up before in all my life, John." "I never have been." "But what is sure--what can I depend on for Grace?"