She looked up with sudden pleasure, and her glasses fell from her eyes.  She did not replace them, but, clasping her hands tightly together, exclaimed: 

“Oh, sir, if you can do anything for me——­But I don’t want to make you think——­” She paused in evident confusion, and Farnham kindly interposed.

“What I may think is not of any consequence just now.  What is it you want, and how can I be of service to you?”

“Oh, it is a long story, and I thought it was so easy to tell, and I find it isn’t easy a bit.  I want to do something—­to help my parents—­I mean they do not need any help—­but they can’t help me.  I have tried lots of things.”  She was now stammering and blushing in a way that made her hate herself mortally, and the innocent man in front of her tenfold more, but she pushed on manfully and concluded, “I thought may be you could help me get something I would like.”

“What would you like?”

“Most anything.  I am a graduate of the high school.  I write a good hand, but I don’t like figures well enough to clerk.  I hear there are plenty of good places in Washington.”

“I could do nothing for you if there were.  But you are wrong:  there are no good places in Washington, from the White House down.”

“Well, you are president of the Library Board, ain’t you?” asked the high-school graduate.  “I think I would like to be one of the librarians.”

“Why would you like that?”

“Oh, the work is light, I suppose, and you see people, and get plenty of time for reading, and the pay is better than I could get at anything else.  The fact is,” she began to gain confidence as she talked, “I don’t want to go on in the old humdrum way forever, doing housework and sewing, and never getting a chance at anything better.  I have enough to eat and to wear at home, but the soul has some claims too, and I long for the contact of higher natures than those by whom I am now surrounded.  I want opportunities for self-culture, for intercourse with kindred spirits, for the attainment of a higher destiny.”

She delivered these swelling words with great fluency, mentally congratulating herself that she had at last got fairly started, and wishing she could have struck into that vein at the beginning.  Farnham was listening to her with more of pain than amusement, saying to himself:  “The high school has evidently spoiled her for her family and friends, and fitted her for nothing else.”

“I do not know that there is a vacancy in the library.”

“Oh, yes, there is,” she rejoined, briskly; “I have been to see the librarian himself, and I flatter myself I made a favorable impression.  In fact, the old gentleman seemed really smitten.”

“That is quite possible,” said Farnham.  “But I hope you will not amuse yourself by breaking his heart.”

“I can’t promise.  He must look out for his own heart.”  She had regained her saucy ease, and evidently enjoyed the turn the conversation was taking.  “I find my hands full taking care of myself.”