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“If they can't build shrines, out here on the prairie, surely there's nothing to prevent their buying safety-razors!” she raged.

She fought herself: “I must be wrong. People do live here. It CAN'T be as ugly as — as I know it is! I must be wrong. But I can't do it. I can't go through with it.”

She came home too seriously worried for hysteria; and when she found Kennicott waiting for her, and exulting, “Have a walk? Well, like the town? Great lawns and trees, eh?” she was able to say, with a self-protective maturity new to her, “It's very interesting.”

III

The train which brought Carol to Gopher Prairie also brought Miss Bea Sorenson.

Miss Bea was a stalwart, corn-colored, laughing young woman, and she was bored by farm-work. She desired the excitements of city-life, and the way to enjoy city-life was, she had decided, to “go get a yob as hired girl in Gopher Prairie.” She contentedly lugged her pasteboard telescope from the station to her cousin, Tina Malmquist, maid of all work in the residence of Mrs. Luke Dawson.