I said it was all the same to me, whereupon she ordered a lovely dinner and looked much pleased that I liked it. When I had finished she took me into the street again and looked round for one of the red motor-buses. She soon spied one and begged the conductor to take care of me, and to tell me when I had to get out. Then she nodded to me once more and I rode back to the home. As soon as I got there I went to the directress and reported my good luck. She, however, looked a little doubtful.
"The whole matter is somewhat suspicious," she said; "it has gone too quick, but all that we can do is to trust in Him."
I assured her that I did so, and then I went up into the bedroom and wrote to my friend a letter of some length. The girls who had left the home with me in the morning returned towards supper-time and inquired a little scornfully whether I had got a situation. After I had told them of my success they looked greatly surprised and asked me to tell them all about it. I told them all I knew, and after I had finished the tall, fair girl again shrugged her shoulders.
"That is only the place of a kitchen-maid, but for doing the cooking and scrubbing the floors I am too good, I think;" and while she said that she turned her hat into another shape.
Chapter XV
The little place where my mistress lived is situated on the Thames, about two hours' journey from London. The lady herself came to meet me at the station. The house to which she took me stood somewhat back from the others, near to the bank of the river. Talking kindly all the while, my new mistress showed me into a large pleasant room, and told me that this was to be my room. Left alone, I looked round. The low walls were covered with a pretty light-grey paper, and the black massive iron bedstead had a cover of similar colour. In one corner there was a washstand with a grey veined marble slab, and white china standing upon it. On the right, a chair and a table. The room had two windows, one of which faced the courtyard. The view, however, was barred by the protruding roof of a shed, overgrown so thickly with creepers that it looked like underbrush in the woods. That roof I grew to love immensely, and, later on, I watched with keen delight how its colour changed from the most tender green of spring to the burning red of autumn. The second window gave me a view of the garden which was sloping down to the river, and on the other bank I could see extensive meadows of a most exquisite green. It was this window at which I leaned and looked out, after I had, with a deep breath of relief, noticed the cleanliness and comfort of the room.
I looked down at the Thames, of which I had heard so often at school, and for which I received so much scolding and thrashing because it was so hard to remember whether London or Paris flourished on its banks. I looked down on the meadows lying soft and dreamy, untouched by the hand of greed. No tree, no bush, as far as the eyes could wander, nothing but the free, lovely fields, impressing one with a sense of prosperity and peace. To me that peace and stillness was so pleasing that I folded my hands involuntarily.
"Life," I said in a low voice, "wonderful life!" for wonderful I thought it, in spite of the weariness in all my limbs and the ardent longing in my heart.