Page:George Weston--The apple-tree girl.djvu/50

 and as graduation day drew near she spent many an hour with herself, dreaming those grand, misty dreams which are the heritage of youth and ambition, and trying to shape them into tangible form. Many a career she sketched for herself, only to erase it from her mind with an impatient shake of her head. "I ought to think of something better than that," she would say; "and I will, too, if I'm smart!"

To tell the truth, much as she tried to hide it from herself, the element of romance was always present in her dreams. She didn't want a vocation so much as she wished for an adventure—an adventure of youth and love and success; a drama, if you like—something imaginative, something to appeal to the spirit as well as to the mind.

"I'll get it yet," she kept telling herself. "I'll get it yet if I'm smart, and I've got to be smart or I'm nothing."

Well, as a matter of fact, she "got