Myra had golden hair and a Greek face and would come bursting through
the barber shop in a hat at least six inches wider than what they
wear in Paris. As you saw her swinging up the street to the Telephone
Exchange in a suit that was straight out of the Delineator and brown
American boots, there was style written all over her,--the kind of
thing that Mariposa recognised and did homage to. And to see her in
the Exchange,--she was one of the four girls that I spoke of,--on her
high stool with a steel cap on,--jabbing the connecting plugs in and
out as if electricity cost nothing--well, all I mean is that you
could understand why it was that the commercial travellers would
stand round in the Exchange calling up all sorts of impossible
villages, and waiting about so pleasant and genial!--it made one
realize how naturally good-tempered men are. And then when Myra would
go off duty and Miss Cleghorn, who was sallow, would come on, the
commercial men would be off again like autumn leaves.

It just shows the difference between people. There was Myra who
treated lovers like dogs and would slap them across the face with a
banana skin to show her utter independence. And there was Miss
Cleghorn, who was sallow, and who bought a forty cent Ancient History
to improve herself: and yet if she'd hit any man in Mariposa with a
banana skin, he'd have had her arrested for assault.

Mind you, I don't mean that Myra was merely flippant and worthless.
Not at all. She was a girl with any amount of talent. You should have
heard her recite "The Raven," at the Methodist Social! Simply genius!
And when she acted Portia in the Trial Scene of the Merchant of
Venice at the High School concert, everybody in Mariposa admitted
that you couldn't have told it from the original.