“Oh, I hope I’ll stay longer than that,” laughed Marion. “Why, I’d hate to be sent away when my probationary term was over. I’d almost be tempted to commit some crime that would send me back——” Miss Allyn was a newspaper reporter who had been their dearest friend ever since the girls began their search for work in the big city. She was not as beautiful as the two country girls, but she made up in wisdom what she lacked in beauty. “You are our encyclopedia, directory, almanac and family guide,” Marion had told her, but Miss Allyn was too modest to admit her worth. She was one of the few who could do favors without becoming obtrusively patronizing. Dollie Marlowe was eager to hear about her sister’s visit to their parents, and her blue eyes filled with tears as Marion told them all about it, for in spite of her father’s hardness, and her mother’s weakness, she was still their child and loved her parents dearly. When Marion told them of poor Sallie, Dollie was terribly grieved. She sympathized so deeply with the girl that she became almost hysterical. “I suppose that is exactly the way Sile would have treated me if I had married him,” she cried, with her blue eyes blazing. “Oh, Marion, if Sallie had only had a sister like you, she would never have been weak enough to marry Silas!” “Sallie was a poor, foolish girl,” said Marion, sadly, “and for that very reason Silas abuses her now.” “I think a girl is a fool to marry a man she doesn’t love,” said Miss Allyn, sharply, “particularly when he has no money and she doesn’t even respect him!” “So do I,” said Marion, stoutly, “but Sallie did not know any better. She’s just like dozens of other women—she has never done any thinking. Why, Alma, some of the women in the country are a different order of beings from you city women. They think that marrying is the only end and aim of existence.” “Poor things! I pity them, and I despise them, too,” said Miss Allyn, sadly. “There is no excuse for such reasoning at this stage of the world’s progress. There are so many fields of usefulness for a woman to-day.” “Well, I am glad that Dollie and I are safely out of the rut,” said Marion, thankfully. “We’ve got a chance to develop and see something of the world before we marry and settle down.” “Oh, but I’m going to marry some day,” said Dollie, merrily, as she clambered into bed and placed her pretty plump arms above her head. “Ralph says he won’t wait very long after he is able to support me.” “I’ll have to scold Ralph a little,” said Marion, pinching her sister’s dimpled arm as it lay on the pillow. “He must not be in such a hurry to rob me of my sister, not that I blame him a bit, do you?” she added, laughing. “Not a bit,” said Miss Allyn, quickly. “I’m half in love with her myself. Still, I’d rather she’d marry a millionaire, and she could do it just as easily. Ralph Moore is all right, but he’s too poor for Dollie.”