There had been, too, about their friendship a rather engaging seriousness. They had talked a great deal of futures. They had dreamed together very great dreams. Their dreams had, of course, changed from time to time. There had been that dream of Becky's when she first went to the convent, that she wanted some day to be a nun like Sister Loretto. The fact that it would involve a change of faith was thrashed over flamingly by Randy. "It is all very well for an old woman, Becky. But you'd hate it." Becky had been sure that she would not hate it. "You don't know how lovely she looks in the chapel." "Well, there are other ways to look lovely." "But it would be nice to be--good." "You are good enough." "I am not really, Randy. Sister Loretto says her prayers all day----" "How often do you say yours?" "Oh, at night. And in the mornings--sometimes----" "That's enough for anybody. If you say them hard enough once, what more can the Lord ask?" He had been a rather fierce figure as he had flung his questions, but he had not swerved her in the least from her thought of herself as a novice in a white veil, and later as a full-fledged sister, with beads and a black head-dress. This dream had, in time, been supplanted by one imposed upon her by the ambitions of a much-admired classmate. "Maude and I are going to be doctors," Becky had announced as she and Randy had walked over the fields with the hounds at their heels. "It's a great opportunity for women, Randy, and we shall study in Philadelphia." "Shall you like cutting people up?" he had demanded brutally. She had shuddered. "I shan't have to cut them up very much, shall I?" "You'll have to cut them up a lot. All doctors do, and sometimes they are dead." She had argued a bit shakily after that, and that night she had slept badly. The next morning they had gone over it again. "You fainted when the kitten's paw was crushed in the door." "It was dreadful----" "And you cried when I cut my foot with the hatchet and we were out in the woods. And if you are going to be a doctor you'll have to look at people who are crushed and cut----" "Oh, please, Randy----" Three days of such intensive argument had settled it. Becky decided that it was, after all, better to be an authoress. "There was Louisa Alcott, you know, Randy." He was scornful. "Women weren't made for that--to sit in an attic and write. Why do you keep talking about doing things, Becky? You'll get married when you grow up and that will be the end of it." "I am not going to get married, Randy." "Well, of course you will, and I shall marry and be a lawyer like my father, and perhaps I'll go to Congress." Later he had a leaning towards the ministry. "If I preached I could make the world better, Becky."