"That's the way I'd earn my death in a month," said her sister, looking proudly at the pile of books before her. "Are there no girls amongst those you meet who have a purpose in life?" "None that I've discovered, except the supreme purpose of getting ahead of her dearest friend. Society is just like the old teeter we used to ride at school. When Rosie Carrick was up, I was down, and vice versa." Jean Gordon looked at her younger sister seriously. Jean took everything in life seriously, and plainly Lizzie was determined to continue a problem in spite of her brilliant prospects. She did not understand that the girl's old desire for love and service had grown with the years, and her whole nature was yearning for some expression of it. It was this desire to get back to the old simplicity of life that drove her so often to her brother and sister in their cramped boarding-house. "Why don't you read some improving books," said Jean primly. "I wish I had your chance. If Mrs. Jarvis had taken a fancy to me I'd be a Ph.D. some day." Elizabeth regarded her in silent wonder. The hard life of student and teacher which Jean still pursued was telling on her. She was pale and stooped, and deep lines marked her forehead. To Elizabeth her life seemed a waste of strength. She could never get at Jean's point of view. "And what would you do then--even if you should turn into a P.D.H., or whatever you call him?" "Why, just go on studying, of course." "Until you died?" whispered Elizabeth, appalled at the thought of a life-long vista of green eye-shades and Miss Millses and mathematics. Jean opened her book. "You can't understand," she said patiently. "You haven't any ambition." It was the old, old accusation under which Elizabeth had always lived. She thought of Annie's cosy home which three Visions now made radiant, of John Coulson's love and devotion, and her heart answered the accusation and declared it false. She wondered if other girls were as silently ambitious as she, and why this best of all ambitions must be always locked away in secret, while lesser ones might be proudly proclaimed upon the house-tops. "Evidently I haven't," she said, pulling her cloak about her with a laugh. "I'm a butterfly. Gracious! I believe I hear the Mills rumbling. I'm going to get out of the way." "Wait and talk to her. She'll fire you with a desire to do something. She's the brainiest woman that's ever come under his tuition, Professor Telford says." "I haven't a doubt of it," said Elizabeth, with a look of alarm. "That's just the reason I'm scared of her. She's always in a sort of post-graduate attitude of mind when I'm round, and it makes me feel young and foolish. Good-night. I'm going up to molest the boys." "Don't bother them long, Lizzie--there's a good girl. John needs every minute."