Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/279

Rh Oh, Lollie, please—please, go to your father just for a little while—just for a year or so, just long enough—"

"No, mother. I'm not going."

Stella sank down in her chair. It was useless, futile to beat herself against this soft child's will once she had set it up. Experience had taught Stella that a big buzzing fly is as ineffective in breaking through a plate-glass barrier.

"Well," gloomily, "what are you going to do with yourself, then? You can't hang around a five-roomed apartment all your life, can you, reading two library books a week, and practicing on a piano two hours a day?" (Laurel had not taken any "Courses" this winter.) "What are you going to do to amuse yourself, I'd like to know?"

"I've got a plan," nodded Laurel, smiling.

"Humph."

"I must have something to do, of course. Busy people are always the happiest. I'm going to be very busy. I'm going to be a stenographer, mother."

"A what?" gasped Stella.

"A stenographer. I've thought it all out."

"A stenographer! A stenographer!" Stella repeated, and a third time, "A stenographer!"

If Laurel had said that she was going to be a German spy, Stella couldn't have been more shocked.

"Yes, mother, dear, a stenographer. Don't you see it's the one thing I can be, and live along here with you, and keep up our nice times together evenings, at the theater and the movies? And have Sundays with you, and holidays, and nights? I'm