you make any
engagement."

The next day Walkirk made his report. He had not been as successful as
he had hoped to be. If I had been doing my work in the city, he could
have found me stenographers, amanuenses, or type-writers by the hundred.
By living and working in the country, I made his task much more
difficult. He had found but few persons who were willing to come to me
every day, no matter what the weather, and only one or two who would
consent to come to our village to live.

But he had made a list of several applicants who might suit me, and who
were willing to accept one or the other of the necessary conditions.

"They are all women!" I exclaimed, when I looked at it.

"Yes," said he; "it would be very difficult, perhaps impossible, to find
a competent man who would answer your purpose. The good ones could not
afford to give you part of their time, which is all you require, and you
would not want any other. With women the case is different; and besides,
I am sure, from my own experience, that a lady amanuensis would suit
your purpose much better than a man: she would be more patient, more
willing to accommodate herself to your moods, in every way more
available."

I had not engaged Walkirk to be my under-study in matters of judgment,
and I did not intend that he should act in that capacity; but there was
force in his remarks, and I determined to give them due consideration.
Although I had apartments of my own, I really lived in my grandmother's
house; and of course it was incumbent upon me to consult her upon this
subject. She looked at the matter in her usual kindly way, and soon came
to be of the opinion that, if I could give a worthy and industrious
young woman an opportunity to earn her livelihood, I ought to do it;
taking care, of course, to engage no one who could not furnish the very
best references.

I now put the matter again into Walkirk's hands, and told him to produce
the persons he had selected. He managed the matter with great skill, and
in the course of one morning four ladies called upon me, in such a way
that they did not interfere with each other. Of these applicants none
pleased me. One of them was a dark-haired, dark-eyed, rather spare
person, whose youthful energies had been so improved by years that I was
sure her briskness of action, her promptness of speech, and her evident
anxiety to get to work and to keep at it would eventually drive me
crazy.

Another was a skilled stenographe