"I daresay! So like you, Tom! You would be a terror, and work the girls to death. You are never tired yourself, so you would keep them going till they dropped. I pity the poor creatures who came under your rule, but most likely you will never be tried. You may be first mistress, or second, or third, but it's not likely you'll ever be a Principal!" "It's not likely at all, it's positive sure," retorted Tom calmly. "Principals, like poets, are born not made, and the cause can't afford to lose me. I don't say for a certainty it will be Newnham; it may possibly be Girton, or Somerville, or Lady Margaret Hall, but one of the two or three big places it's bound to be. No one shall call me conceited, but I know my own powers, and I intend that other people shall know them too. Education is my sphere, and I intend to devote my life to the advancement of my sex. Pass the cake, someone! I haven't had half enough. Yes, my vocation is among women. You will hardly believe me, my dears, but men don't seem to appreciate me, somehow! There is a `Je-ne-sais-quoi' in my beauty which doesn't appeal to them a mite. But girls adore me. I've a fatal fascination for them which they can't withstand. There's Rhoda there--she intended to hate me when she first came, and now she adores the ground I tread on. Don't you, Fuzzy? You watch her smile, and see if it's not true! Very well, then; I see plainly what Providence intends, and I'm going straight towards that goal." "And it is what you would like? You would choose it if you had the choice?" "Rather, just! It's the dream of my life. There is nothing in all the world that I should like so much." Pretty Dorothy sighed, and elevated her eyebrows. "Well--I wouldn't. I enjoy school very much, and want to do well while I am here, but when I leave, I never want to do another hour's study. If I thought I had to teach, I should go crazy. I should like to have a good time at home for a few years, and then--yes, I should!--I should like to marry a nice man who loved me, and live in the country--and have a dear little home of my own. Now, I suppose you despise me for a poor- spirited wretch; but it's true, and I can't help it." But Tom did not look at all scornful. She beamed at the speaker over her slice of plum-cake, and cried blandly-- "Bless you, no! It's quite natural. You are that sort, my dear, and I should not have believed you if you had said anything else. You'll marry, of course, and I'll come and visit you in the holidays, and you'll say to `Him,' `What a terrible old maid Thomasina has grown!' and I'll say to myself, `Poor, dear old Dorothy, she is painfully domestic!' and we will both pity each other, and congratulate ourselves on our own escape. We have different vocations, you and I, and it would be folly to try to go the same way."