I don't want to go to Miss Parsons' school--" "Where do you want to go then ?" Like most inspirations, it came like a flash.
"If I'm going anywhere, I want to go to college--" To college! A Spencer girl--or a Spicer--going to college! Miss Cordelia gasped.

If Mary had been noticing, she might not have pursued her inspiration further, but her mind was running along a breathless panorama of Niagara Falls, Great Lakes, Chicago, the farms of the Middle West, Yellowstone Park, geysers, the Old Man of the Mountain, Aztec ruins, redwood forests, orange groves and at the end of the vista--like a statue at the end of a garden walk--she imagined a great democratic institution of learning where one might conceivably be prepared to solve some of those problems which life seems to take such deep delight in presenting to us, with the grim command, "Not one step farther shall you go until you have answered this!" "To college ?" gasped Miss Cordelia.
"Yes," said Mary, still intent upon her panorama, "there's a good one in California.

I'll look it up." The more Mary thought of it, the fonder she grew of her idea--which is, I think, a human trait and true of nearly every one.

It was in vain that her aunts argued with her, pointing out the social advantages which she would enjoy from attending Miss Parsons' School.

Mary's objection was fundamental.