She ran quickly upstairs. "What is getting to be the
matter with me?" she asked herself anxiously.
* * * * *
One evening in the month of May, during her third year at the University,
Clara sat on the bank of a tiny stream by a grove of trees, far out on the
edge of a suburban village north of Columbus. Beside her sat a young man
named Frank Metcalf whom she had known for a year and who had once been a
student in the same classes with herself. He was the son of the president
of the plow manufacturing company of which her uncle was treasurer. As they
sat together by the stream the afternoon light began to fade and darkness
came on. Before them across an open field stood a factory, and Clara
remembered that the whistle had long since blown and the men from the
factory had gone home. She grew restless and sprang to her feet. Young
Metcalf who had been talking very earnestly arose and stood beside her.
"I can't marry for two years, but we can be engaged and that will be all
the same thing as far as the right and wrong of what I want and need is
concerned. It isn't my fault I can't ask you to marry me now," he declared.
"In two years now, I'll inherit eleven thousand dollars. My aunt left it to
me and the old fool went and fixed it so I don't get it if I marry before
I'm twenty-four. I want that money. I've got to have it, but I got to have
you too.
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