o me--right
away. You have done me so much good already. I was just a New England
bred school teacher myself at first, so we're even that far. Then you
took a step up--and I took a step down."

Diantha was a little slow in understanding the quick fervor of this new
friend; a trifle suspicious, even; being a cautious soul, and somewhat
overstrung, perhaps. Her visitor, bright-eyed and eager, went on. "I
gave up school teaching and married a fortune. You have given it up to
do a more needed work. I think you are wonderful. Now, I know this
seems queer to you, but I want to tell you about it. I feel sure you'll
understand. At home, Madam Weatherstone has had everything in charge for
years and years, and I've been too lazy or too weak, or too indifferent,
to do anything. I didn't care, somehow. All the machinery of living,
and no _living_--no good of it all! Yet there didn't seem to be
anything else to do. Now you have waked me all up--your paper this
afternoon--what Mr. Eltwood said--the way those poor, dull, blind women
took it. And yet I was just as dull and blind myself! Well, I begin to
see things now. I can't tell you all at once what a difference it has
made; but I have a very definite proposition to make to you. Will you
come and be my housekeeper, now--right away--at a hundred dollars a
month?"

Diantha opened her eyes wide and looked at the eager lady as if she
suspected her nervous balance.

"The other one got a thousand a year--you are worth more. Now, don't
decline, please. Let me tell you about it. I can see that you have plans
ahead, for this business; but it can't hurt you much to put them off
six months, say. Meantime, you could be practicing. Our place at Santa
Ulrica is almost as big as this one; there are lots of servants and
a great, weary maze of accounts to be kept, and it wouldn't be bad
practice for you--now, would it?"

Diantha's troubled eyes lit up. "No--you are right there," she said. "If
I could do it!"

"You'll have to do just that sort of thing when you are running your
business, won't you?" her visitor went on. "And the summer's not a good
time to start a thing like that, is it?"

Diantha meditated. "No, I wasn't going to. I was going to start
somewhere--take a cottage, a dozen girls or so--and furnish labor by the
day to the other cottages."

"Well, you might be able to run that on the side," said Mrs.
Weatherstone. "And you could train my girls, get in new ones if you
like; it do