"Everybody saw it but you. I am sure Amy knew--and Winifred Reed. You--you ought to marry Winifred, Max. Perhaps you will. You won't want me after you read this letter. And Winifred is splendid.
"It was your speech to the men that waked me. I saw how big you were, and I just--shriveled up.
"And you mustn't worry about me. I am not hungry any more. I feel as if I should never want anything to eat. Perhaps it is because I am older and haven't a growing appetite. And I am not any of the things you thought me. And of course you would be disappointed, and it wouldn't be fair."
Having posted this, Anne had other things to do. She wrote mysterious letters, and finally came into a room where her sisters and Aunt Elizabeth were sewing, with an important-looking paper in her hand.
Amy and Ethel and Aunt Elizabeth wore white frocks, and looked very cool and feminine and high-bred. Aunt Elizabeth had a nose like Amy's and the same look of race.
It was Aunt Elizabeth who said in her commanding voice: "What are you talking about, Anne?"
"I am going to work in the War Risk Bureau, Aunt Elizabeth. I wrote to two senators, and they helped me."
No woman of the Merryman family had ever worked in an office.
Anne faced a storm of disapproval, but she stood there slim and defiant, and stated her reasons.
"We need money. I don't see how we can get through a winter like the last. I can't keep my self-respect if we go on living as we did last winter."
She left the room a conqueror. After she had gone the three women talked about her. They did not say it openly, but they felt that there was really an ordinary streak in Anne. Otherwise she would not have wanted to work in an office.
There was, however, nothing to be done. Anne was twenty-one. She was to get a hundred dollars a month. In spite of herself, Amy felt a throb of the heart as she thought of what that hundred dollars would mean to them.
Murray Flint was much perturbed when he heard of Anne's decision. He wrote to her that of course she knew that there was no reason why she should go into an office--his home and hearthstone were hers. She wrote back that she should never marry! After that, Murray felt, with Amy and Ethel and Aunt Elizabeth, that there was an ordinary streak in Anne!