To college! A Spencer girl--or a Spicer--going to college! Miss Cordelia gasped. If Mary had been noticing, she might not have pursued her inspiration further, but her mind was running along a breathless panorama of Niagara Falls, Great Lakes, Chicago, the farms of the Middle West, Yellowstone Park, geysers, the Old Man of the Mountain, Aztec ruins, redwood forests, orange groves and at the end of the vista--like a statue at the end of a garden walk--she imagined a great democratic institution of learning where one might conceivably be prepared to solve some of those problems which life seems to take such deep delight in presenting to us, with the grim command, "Not one step farther shall you go until you have answered this!" "To college?" gasped Miss Cordelia. "Yes," said Mary, still intent upon her panorama, "there's a good one in California. I'll look it up." The more Mary thought of it, the fonder she grew of her idea--which is, I think, a human trait and true of nearly every one. It was in vain that her aunts argued with her, pointing out the social advantages which she would enjoy from attending Miss Parsons' School. Mary's objection was fundamental. She simply didn't care for those advantages. Indeed, she didn't regard them as advantages at all. Helen did, though. In her heart Helen had always longed to tread the stage of society--to her mind, a fairyland of wit and gallantry, masquerades and music, to say nothing of handsome young polo players and titled admirers from foreign shores--"big fools," all of them, as you can guess, when dazzled by the smiles of Youth and Beauty. "Mary can go to California if she likes," said Helen at last, "but give me Miss Parsons' School." And Mary did go to California, although I doubt if she would have gained her point if her father hadn't taken her part. For four years she attended the university by the Golden Gate, and every time she made the journey between the two oceans, sometimes accompanied by Miss Cordelia and sometimes by Miss Patty, she seemed to be a little more serene of glance, a little more tranquil of brow, as though one by one she were solving some of those problems which I have mentioned above. Meanwhile Helen was in her glory at Miss Parsons'; and though the two aunts didn't confess it, they liked to sit and listen to her chatter of the girls whose friendship she was making, and to whose houses she was invited for the holidays.