willingness to undertake
secretarial duties, to act as companion to an invalid lady--as governess
to young children, or as instructress in the arts of poker-work,
marquetry, and painting on china; then as time went on and the public
continued to treat her overtures with contempt, she abandoned this mode
of procedure, and contented herself with reading the notices for which
_other_ people had paid, and in wasting postage-stamps in reply.

It was when this occupation had been continued for several months and
her spirits had fallen to the lowest possible ebb that her eye was
attracted by a paragraph which awakened new hopes. A lady wished to
meet with a young person of good principles and cheerful disposition,
who would accompany her to church on Sundays, spend some hours of every
morning in reading aloud, playing upon the harmonium, and making herself
useful and agreeable; and applicants were directed to apply in person at
Number 8 Berrington Square, between three and five o'clock in the
afternoon.

"I shall try for it!" cried Norah instantly. "It will be horribly
humiliating. I shall be shown into the dining-room, and expected to
take a seat between the sideboard and the door, as servants do when they
are applying for a situation, but anything is better than sitting here,
doing nothing! I don't feel remarkably cheerful at present, but it is
in the old lady's power to put me in the wildest spirits, if she is so
inclined. She must be old--no human creature under sixty could have
written that advertisement. She can't have any children, or she would
not be advertising for a companion; she must be well off, or she could
not afford to pay for `extras' in this rash fashion; she would have to
put up with being dull as I have done the last month. Heigho! It would
be very pleasing if she took a fancy to me, and adopted me as her heir!
I don't in the least see why she shouldn't! I can be very charming when
I choose. I shall put on my sealskin coat, and my best hat!"

A few hours later, Miss Boyce knocked at the door of Number 8 Berrington
Square, was informed that Mrs Baker was at home, and shown into a room
on the right of the entrance hall. It was the dining-room. "Of course!
I knew it!" said Norah to herself, and straightway proceeded to take
stock of her surroundings. A red flock wall-paper, a heavy mahogany
sideboard, on which were flanked an imposing array of biscuit-boxes and
cruets; mahogany chairs upholster