Persis looked up, her face aglow. “I? Why, I haven’t had a bit of experience. I don’t know a thing about such matters, except,” she added, thoughtfully, “that I have always edited our little club paper. It isn’t printed, you know, only written out, and copied on the type-writer, and it is a very insignificant affair.”
“Nevertheless, I believe you could take hold of our page for us. We want something attractive to children. You have a fund of humor, good taste, good judgment, and a decided faculty for analysis. I can soon initiate you into certain mysteries of a technical sort, and we would rather have some one young enough to understand the likes and dislikes of children. We cannot pay you a large salary;” and he named a figure which seemed quite important to the inexperienced girl.
“That editorial we always sounds so very important,” laughed Persis. “I should be perfectly enchanted to try the work, but I must consult mamma and papa first, and I will let you know as soon as possible. Oh, Mr. Dan, you don’t know what a load it will lift for me. It will put a reason into my days. I had intended joining the Monday Afternoon Club, and I shall still keep up my interest in the Maids, but this seems so much more real than anything else. Thank you so much for offering it to me.”
“You can do the greater part of your work at home,” Mr. Danforth explained. “A call once a week at the office will be all that will be demanded of you, and even that may not always be necessary.”
In a tremor of excitement Persis unfolded the scheme to her mother, who at first looked doubtful, but as Persis smoothed away all obstacles it was decided that she should be allowed to make the experiment, and she wrote of her new work in exuberant terms to Lisa. Just what that young woman thought of the proceeding was not gathered from the letter she sent in reply; but she congratulated Persis upon her prospects, and stated that she had concluded to remain through the year; that she had made some very pleasant acquaintances, and there was so much to see. “I shall have a volume to tell you when I do get home,” she wrote. “I long to see you all, but Aunt Esther is so good and generous, and is so anxious to keep me, I really think I ought to stay.”
The summer was passed quietly at Bellingly, by the same little company with the exception of Mr. Danforth and Lisa, whose absence made itself felt, and Persis concluded that it was a mistake to go a second time to a place where you had once specially enjoyed yourself.
Mr. Danforth began his system of training by sending to Persis a batch of proofs each week. These she was to correct and return; and in this way a pleasant correspondence was kept up. Sometimes a little poem would be slipped in, or accompanying the bundle might be a letter giving comments upon the last corrections; and once Mr. Danforth came down to spend Sunday at the old place.
“It does seem very natural to see you here,” said Persis, viewing him from the hammock. “Grandma, I know, must have missed you. If it were not for Annis—and Basil—and grandma, I should be rather lonely myself.”
Mr. Danforth looked amused. “It seems to me you are pretty well secured against loneliness.”
Persis laughed. “I’m not likely to lose them all, am I? But I don’t know what I shall do next winter when Annis goes to college and the boys go with their mother.”