"And you are going to fight the world," said Leslie, with tender sympathy for this young girl who could be so cheerful under such circumstances. "What are you going to do?"
Lucy Somes laughed as she put a fresh piece of toast on the rack.
"I'm going to be a governess."
"A governess!" said Leslie. "In a gentleman's family?"
Lucy Somes shook her head emphatically.
"Oh, no, thank you! I know what that means! Six young children to teach, all the mending to do, and heaps of other things for twenty pounds a year; less than they give their cook! No, no! I am going to be the mistress of one of the country schools."
"Yes?" said Leslie vaguely.
"Yes, I am going to try and get the mistressship of a Board or Voluntary school in some country place; I couldn't live in London. I don't seem as if I could breathe here. Every morning I wake and fancy I have been shut up in a coal mine. Did you ever notice how the smuts come into the room when you open the window? And that's what London folks breathe all the time."
"It does not seem to disagree with them," said Leslie, with a faint smile.
"It disagrees with me," retorted Lucy, laughing. "Oh, no, no, give me the country, with plenty of space to move about, and the flowers and the birds, and butter that isn't manufactured from fat, and milk that isn't a mixture of chalk and water. Don't you think it will be very nice to be the mistress of a school in some pretty village? There is always a nice little house for one to live in, and perhaps I could afford to keep a young girl for a servant, and—and—be able to save some money to send to mother to help her with the rest of us."