ney you would pay, which would probably
amount to a considerable sum if your book should be a long one, and as
you were in a great hurry, and might engage some one from the city if
one of the Martha sisters were not immediately available, Mother
Anastasia and I concluded that it would be well to send this young
person until one of the older sisters, competent for the work, should be
disengaged. I thought you would be very anxious to have this change made
as soon as possible, so that you might feel that you had a permanent
secretary."

"Oh, no," said I, trying very hard not to appear too much in earnest.
"This person is very steady, and there is a certain advantage in her
being young, without much experience as a secretary. I wish any one who
writes for me to work in my way; and if such a person has been
accustomed to work in other people's ways, annoyance and interruption
must surely result, and that I wish very much to avoid. A secretary
should be a mere writing-machine, and I do not believe an elderly person
could be that. She would be sure to have notions how my work should or
should not be done, and in some way or other would make those notions
evident."

"I don't quite agree with you," said my grandmother, "but of course you
know your own business better than I do; and I suppose, after all, it
doesn't make much difference whether the sister is young or not. They
all dress alike, and all look ugly alike. I don't suppose there would be
anything attractive about the Venus de Milo, if she wore a coal-scuttle
bonnet and a gray woolen shawl."

"No," I answered, "especially if she kept the opening of her
coal-scuttle turned down over her paper, as if she were about to empty
coals upon it."

"That's very proper," said my grandmother, speaking a little more
briskly. "All she has to do is to keep her eyes on her work, and I
suppose, from what you say, that the flaps of her bonnet do not
interfere with her keeping her ears on you. But if at any time you
desire to make a change, all you have to do is to let me know, and I can
easily arrange the matter."

I promised that I would certainly let her know in case I had such a
desire.

That evening Walkirk remarked to me that he thought nothing could be
more satisfactory for me than to have on tap, so to speak, an
institution like the House of Martha, from which I could draw a
secretary whenever I wanted one, and keep her for as long or as short a
time as pleased me; and to