“But, Martha—­”

“Don’t let’s waste no more words.  The thing ain’t to be thought of.”

“But, Martha, it’s over two weeks since you said that, about having an idea about a certain job for me that was going to be so splendid.  Don’t you know it is?  And I thought it had fallen through.  I didn’t like to speak about it, for fear you’d think I was hurrying you, but two weeks are two weeks, and I can’t go on indefinitely staying here, and getting so deep in debt I’ll never be able to get out again.  And I saw this advertisement in The Outlook. ’Twas for a college graduate to teach High School English in a girls’ boarding-school, and I went to the agency, and they were very nice, and told me to write to the Principal, and I did—­told her all about myself, my experience tutoring, and all that, and this morning came the letter saying she’d engage me.  I can tell you all about Schoharie, Martha.  It’s ‘up-state’ and—­”

“Miss Claire, child, no!  It won’t do.  I can’t consent.  I can’t have you throwin’ away golden opportoonities to work like a toojan for them as’ll stint you in the wash, an’ prob’ly give you oleo-margerine instead of butter, an’ cold-storage eggs that had forgot there was such a thing as a hen, long before they ever was laid away.  I wasn’t born yesterday, myself, an’ I know how they treat the teachers in some o’ them schools.  The young-lady scholars, so stylish an’ rich, as full of airs as a music-box, snubbin’ the teacher because they’re too ignorant to know how smart she has to be, to get any knowledge into their stupid heads, an’ the Principal always eyein’ you like a minx, ’less you might be wastin’ her precious time an’ not earnin’ the elegant sal’ry she gives you, includin’ your home an’ laundry.  O my!  I know a thing or two about them schools, an’ a few other places.  No, Miss Claire, dear, it won’t do.  An’ besides, I have you bespoke for Mrs. Sherman.  The last thing before I come away from the house this night, she sent for me upstairs, an’ ast me didn’t I know some one could engage with her for Radcliffe—­to learn him his lessons, an’ how to be a little lady, an’ suchlike.  She wants, as you might say, a trained mother for’m, while his own untrained one is out gallivantin’ the streets, shoppin’, an’ playin’ bridge, an’ attendin’ the horse-show.

“I hemmed an’ hawed an’ scratched my head to see if, happen, I did know anybody suitable, an’ after a while (not to seem to make you too cheap, or not to look like I was jumpin’ down her throat) I told her:  ’Curious enough, I do know just the one I think will please you—­if you can get her.’

“Then she ast me a lot about you, an’ I told her what I know, an’ for the rest I trusted to Providence, an’ in the end we made a sorter deal—­so’s it’s all fixed you’re to go there day after to-morrer, to talk to her, an’ let her look you over.  An’ if you’re the kind o’ stuff she wants, she’ll take a half-a-dozen yards o’ you, which is the kind o’ way those folks has with people they pay money to.  I promised Mrs. Sherman you’d come, an’ I couldn’t break my word to her, now could I?  I’d be like to lose my own job if I did, an’ I’m sure you wouldn’t ast that o’ me!”