Colorado quivered before her in images supernal. Colorado!
Enchantment in the very name! And mountains, and eternal snow upon
the peaks, and spraying waterfalls, and bright-painted gardens of
the gods--oh, ecstasy!

And going with Aunt Isabel! Aunt Isabel was young, beautiful, and
delightful. Aunt Isabel went to Colorado every summer!

But a whole year! That is, in truth, a long time and can bring forth
much that is unforeseen, amazing, revolutionizing. Especially when
one is sixteen and beginning really to know life.

Missy had always found life in Cherryvale absorbing. The past had
been predominantly tinged with the rainbow hues of dreams; with the
fine, vague, beautiful thoughts that "reading" brings, and with such
delicious plays of fancy as lend witchery to a high white moon, an
arched blue sky, or rolling prairies-even to the tranquil town and
the happenings of every day. Nothing could put magic into the
humdrum life of school, and here she must struggle through another
whole year of it before she might reach Colorado. That was a cloud,
indeed, for one who wasn't "smart" like Beulah Crosswhite.
Mathematics Missy found an inexplicable, unalloyed torture; history
for all its pleasingly suggestive glimpses of a spacious past, laid
heavy taxes on one not good at remembering dates. But Missy was
about to learn to take a more modern view of high school
possibilities. Shortly before school opened Cousin Pete came to see
his grandparents in Cherryvale. Perhaps Pete's filial devotion was
due to the fact that Polly Currier resided in Cherryvale; Polly was
attending the State University where Pete was a "Post-Grad." Missy