Mrs. Dayton laughed. "There comes Miss Gray, and the fussing will take a good hour. Though I think it pays, even at a dollar an hour."
Helen was silent from amazement.
"Oh, she has patients at three dollars an hour, real invalids. And she could get more in the city. Joanna knows about the breakfast. Mrs. Van Dorn is wise enough not to gorge her stomach with useless and injurious food. I never saw a person take better care of herself."
It was a very pleasant walk under maples and elms, with here and there an old-fashioned Lombardy poplar; lindens with their fringy tassels, and horse-chestnuts with their dense, spreading leaves. There was but one real market in Hope, but numerous smaller attempts. Mrs. Dayton gave her orders for the day's provision.
"Now, we will go around the longest way," smilingly. "There's the High School. It calls in quite a number of winter boarders, and sometimes the large boys prove very troublesome. And here is the Free Library, though there is quite a tax to support it, and numerous contributions. There is a fine reference-room for the scholars. Education seems to be made easy now-a-days. Let us go in."
The lower floor was devoted to the library. A large room was shelved around in alcoves, reserved for some particular kind of books. History, biography, science, music, discoveries and travels, as well as novels. The reading-room was at one end, the reference department at the other. Just now it was very quiet, being rather dull times.
Up on the next floor was a fine auditorium for amusements and lectures. In the wings were small rooms used for lodge meetings and such purposes. Helen was very much interested. Oh, what a happy time! And yet she felt a little conscience-smitten, as if she wasn't doing her whole duty.
The papers had come, and presently Mrs. Van Dorn took her accustomed seat. Mrs. Pratt was at the corner of the piazza doing needlework. Miss Lessing was sketching from nature. The younger girl was out hunting wild flowers.
Helen read the home news, then the foreign news. It seemed queer to know what they were doing in London, and Paris, and Rome, that hitherto had been merely places on the map to her. And then what financiers in New York were talking of, which really was an unknown language to her, but not to Mrs. Van Dorn, who for years had held the key.
Perhaps the charm in Helen was her interest in what she was doing. Sometimes she made quite a fanciful thing of her work at home, though she was not what you would call a romantic girl. And now most of the time she was reading, she put life into her tones. Mrs. Van Dorn had been here and there, and she wanted the descriptions of things to seem real to her.