Some of my readers--both of the gentle and of the other kind--may be surprised that a girl of seventeen should be so self-assured, so independent. They must remember that she was a daughter of the people; and among the people a girl of seventeen was, and I suppose still is, ready for marriage, ready and resolved to decide all important matters for herself. At seventeen Edna, in self-poise and in experience, judgment and all the other mature qualities, was the equal of the carefully sheltered girl of twenty-five or more. She may have been brought up a lady, may have been in all essential ways as useless as the most admired of that weariful and worthless class. But the very nature of her surroundings, in that simple household and that simple community, had given her a certain practical education. And I may say here that to it she owes all she is to-day. Do not forget this, gentle reader, as you read about her and as she dazzles you. As you look at the gorgeous hardy rose do not forget that such spring only from the soil, develop only in the open. That very evening we began to look for a home. As soon as we were outside her front gate she turned in the direction of the better part of the town. Nor did she pause or so much as glance at a house until we were clear of the neighborhood in which we had always lived, and were among houses much superior. I admired, and I still admire, this significant move of hers. It was the gesture of progress, of ambition. It was splendidly American. I myself should have been content to settle down near our fathers and mothers, among the people we knew. I should no doubt have been better satisfied to keep up the mode of living to which we had been used all our lives. The time would have come when I should have reached out for more comfort and for luxury. But it was natural that she should develop in this direction before I did. She had read her novels and her magazines, had the cultured woman’s innate fondness for dress and show, had had nothing but those kinds of things to think about; I had been too busy trying to make money to have any time for getting ideas about spending it. No; while her motive in seeking better things than we had known was in the main a vanity and a sham, her action had as much _initial_ good in it as if her motive had been sensible and helpful. And back of the motive lay an instinct for getting up in the world that has been the redeeming and preserving trait in her character. It was this instinct that ought to have made her the fit wife for an ambitious and advancing man. You will presently see how this fine and useful instinct was perverted by vanity and false education and the pernicious example of other women. “The rents are much higher in this neighborhood,” said I, with a doubtful but admiring look round at the pretty houses and their well-ordered grounds. “Of course,” said she. “But maybe we can find something. Anyway, it won’t do any harm to look.”