Another troubling phase began simultaneously, the period of miraculous material opportunity, the fungus growth of fortunes great and little. The suddenly prosperous parents began to plan for their children those opportunities which had been denied them, seeking to educate them beyond what they had known--a process ever linked with tragedy and disillusionment. What now results, with the thousands of young girls who have learned of magazines and novels or who have gone out from the confining narrowness of little homes to a broader education--not simply in books but in the experience of life, of a certain independency, of the opportunities beyond? * * * * * At about the age of eighteen the Salamander returns to town or village, to the mediocrity of the home from which she has escaped, and at once the great choice of life presents itself to her. What she has learned, what she has absorbed from every newspaper has awakened her curiosity and given her a hunger of the great life which is throbbing somewhere, far away, in great cities, in a thousand fascinating forms. To remain, to take up a mild drudgery in the home, means closing the door on this curiosity. Marriage to such men as remain means at best the renunciation of that romance which is stirring in her imagination. Why should she have been educated, if but to return to a distasteful existence? The parents by the very education which has thrust their daughter so far above their simple needs have destroyed their old authority. No other voice of authority commands her in credible tones to renounce the follies of this life--to consult only the future. In fact she is none too certain of what is beyond, but she is certain of what she wants to-day. She spurns the doctrine that it is woman's position to abnegate and to immolate herself. New ideas are stirring within her, logical revolts--equality of burden with men, equality of opportunity and of pleasure. She is sure of one life only and that one she passionately desires. She wants to live that life to its fullest, now, in the glory of her youth. She wants to breathe, not to stifle. She wants adventure. She wants excitement and mystery. She wants to see, to know, to experience.... And one fine day, inevitably, she packs her valise as her brothers may have done before her, and despite commands, entreaties, tears, she stands at last on the platform of a shivering creaking train, waving the inevitable farewell to the old people, who stand bewildered, straining their eyes after the fast-fading handkerchief, feebly fluttered by the daughter whom they have educated for this. She will come back soon. She will return in a few months--in a year, surely. She never returns.