"You see, my dears, living as we do, you girls are absolutely cut off from the opportunities which are so essential to every girl's success in life. This has been a great worry to me. You are growing older, and you are forming no acquaintances that will be of value to you. For this reason I have decided that the expense of sending you both--for a last year, you understand--to a good school, a smart school, a school where Alma can meet girls who will count for something in social life--is an expense that must be met." "But--heavens, we've had all the ordinary schooling we need," exclaimed Nancy in amazement. "If--if I could just have a few months' tutoring so that I could take my college exams in the spring--I could work my way through college easily----" "I don't want you to go to college, Nancy," said Mrs. Prescott irritably. "What in the world is the use of a whole lot of ologies and isms--and ruining your looks over a lot of senseless analyzing and dissecting and everything----" "I won't be studying anything useless, Mother dearest. But don't you see that it will be ever so much easier for me to get a position as a teacher if I can show a Bachelor's degree instead of just a smattering of French, or a thimbleful of ancient history?" "There's no reason why you should think of becoming a teacher," answered Mrs. Prescott. "And I wish you wouldn't talk about it--it's so dreadfully drab and gloomy." "But I want to make my living in some way." "If you and Alma marry well, there won't be any reason why you should make your living." "But, Mother, we can't count on chance, like that. Suppose Alma and I never met a rich man whom we could love--we'd be helpless." "A year at Miss Leland's will give both of you plenty of opportunities. You'll meet girls there whom you ought to know, girls who will invite you to their houses, through whom you'll meet eligible young men----" "The expense of paying for board and tuition at Miss Leland's would be the least of the digging we'd have to do into the family purse. We'd be under obligations to people, which we would never be in a position to repay--we'd be no better than plain, ordinary sponges. I--I couldn't bear it. Besides, the fees at Miss Leland's are terribly high. I could go to college for almost two years on what I'd pay for one year at Miss Leland's--and all that we'd get at that school would be a little French, a smattering of history, dancing and fudge parties." "And extremely desirable acquaintances." "But, Mother, we'd never be able to keep up with them on their own scale of living," pleaded Nancy, with a hopeless conviction in her heart that she was talking to the winds. "Girls like Elise Porterbridge and Jane Whiteright have an allowance of a hundred a month, and anything else they want, when they've spent it." "You've got money on the brain, Nancy," said Alma, shaking her curls off her face. "You are a regular old miser."