She wanted to be graceful. And she heard they had a course in millinery.
If it was so, she believed she would go herself, and learn to make the new
kind of bows they were having on hats this winter. She could not seem to
get the right twist to the ribbon.

Elizabeth wanted to study geography. At least, that was the study Lizzie
said would tell her where the Desert of Sahara was. She wanted to know
things, all kinds of things; but Lizzie said such things were only for
children, and she didn't believe they taught such baby studies in a
college. But she would inquire. It was silly of Bessie to want to know,
she thought, and she was half ashamed to ask. But she would find out.

It was about this time that Elizabeth's life at the store grew
intolerable.

One morning--it was little more than a week before Christmas--Elizabeth
had been sent to the cellar to get seven little red tin pails and shovels
for a woman who wanted them for Christmas gifts for some Sunday-school
class. She had just counted out the requisite number and turned to go
up-stairs when she heard some one step near her, and, as she looked up in
the dim light, there stood the manager.

"At last I've got you alone, Bessie, my dear!" He said it with suave
triumph in his tones. He caught Elizabeth by the wrists, and before she
could wrench herself away he had kissed her.

With a scream Elizabeth dropped the seven tin pails and the seven tin
shovels, and with one mighty wrench took her hands from his grasp.
Instinctively her hand went to her belt, where were now no pistols. If one
had been there she certainly would have shot him in her horror and fury.