With all her care and responsibility, had it not been for her anxiety in her mother’s behalf, this long, golden summer would have been one long to be remembered for its simple pleasures and calm enjoyments.  The days passed quickly.

“Can it be possible,” said Clemence to herself one day, as she took her hat and shawl, and put them on absently, “that I have been in Mrs. Vaughn’s employment three months?” She looked at the crisp bank notes that lay in her hand, in payment of her first quarter’s salary.  “I consider myself a young lady of some importance, or, perhaps, I should say ‘young woman,’ now that I am a working member of society.”  She laughed aloud at her own thoughts.  “Well, I am proud of the privilege,” she mused, “and can take pleasure in the thought that I am an ‘independent unity,’ I never felt so strong-minded in my life.”

A tawdry, ill-kempt female figure was shuffling slowly by the stately Vaughn mansion, as Clemence tripped down the steps, and two envious black eyes noted the happy smile upon her face.

“How d’ye do, Miss Graystone,” said a harsh voice.  “Ain’t too big to speak to a body, are you, cause you happen to be among ’ristocrats?”

Clemence turned and immediately recognized Mrs. Bailey, an elderly woman, who lodged beneath the same humble roof to which her own straitened circumstances had consigned her with her parent.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Bailey,” she said politely, “I did not observe you before.”

“He! he!” giggled the old lady spitefully, “my eyes are sharp, if I am old.  May be, now, if I was a fine gentleman, like the one with yonder lady, I would not be so easily overlooked?”

She stretched out her long arm, and looking in the direction in which she pointed, Clemence beheld, to her horror and dismay, Mrs. Vaughn, and beside her the gentleman who had been so kind to her, and had seemed to take such a friendly interest in her success with her little pupils.  They had not yet been observed, and there was still time for the mortified girl to make her escape unseen.  The first impulse of her mind was to excuse herself to her eccentric companion, and turn quickly a convenient corner.

“But,” she thought, “I should hurt this good woman’s feelings, and lose my own self-respect by such a course.  Clemence Graystone, what are these people to you, that you should do a cowardly act for fear of them.”

She raised her head proudly, and gave, perhaps, a more than usually distant bend of the head to the gentleman’s respectful bow.  The lady gave her only a stare of astonishment, and they had scarcely passed, when she heard these words distinctly: 

“How shocking! Did you see that horrid creature with Miss Graystone?  It must be her mother.  I declare, if I had have known she had such low relations, I never would have engaged her.”

“Gracia, hush!  I entreat you, Miss Graystone will overhear you.”