“Won't you sit down?” said Diantha.
“You, too,” said Mrs. Weatherstone. “Now I want you to come to me—right away. You have done me so much good already. I was just a New England bred school teacher myself at first, so we're even that far. Then you took a step up—and I took a step down.”
Diantha was a little slow in understanding the quick fervor of this new friend; a trifle suspicious, even; being a cautious soul, and somewhat overstrung, perhaps. Her visitor, bright-eyed and eager, went on. “I gave up school teaching and married a fortune. You have given it up to do a more needed work. I think you are wonderful. Now, I know this seems queer to you, but I want to tell you about it. I feel sure you'll understand. At home, Madam Weatherstone has had everything in charge for years and years, and I've been too lazy or too weak, or too indifferent, to do anything. I didn't care, somehow. All the machinery of living, and no living—no good of it all! Yet there didn't seem to be anything else to do. Now you have waked me all up—your paper this afternoon—what Mr. Eltwood said—the way those poor, dull, blind women took it. And yet I was just as dull and blind myself! Well, I begin to see things now. I can't tell you all at once what a difference it has made; but I have a very definite proposition to make to you. Will you come and be my housekeeper, now—right away—at a hundred dollars a month?”
Diantha opened her eyes wide and looked at the eager lady as if she suspected her nervous balance.
“The other one got a thousand a year—you are worth more. Now, don't decline, please. Let me tell you about it. I can see that you have plans ahead, for this business; but it can't hurt you much to put them off six months, say. Meantime, you could be practicing. Our place at Santa Ulrica is almost as big as this one; there are lots of servants and a great, weary maze of accounts to be kept, and it wouldn't be bad practice for you—now, would it?”
Diantha's troubled eyes lit up. “No—you are right there,” she said. “If I could do it!”
“You'll have to do just that sort of thing when you are running your business, won't you?” her visitor went on. “And the summer's not a good time to start a thing like that, is it?”
Diantha meditated. “No, I wasn't going to. I was going to start somewhere—take a cottage, a dozen girls or so—and furnish labor by the day to the other cottages.”
“Well, you might be able to run that on the side,” said Mrs. Weatherstone. “And you could train my girls, get in new ones if you like; it doesn't seem to me it would conflict. But to speak to you quite frankly, Miss Bell, I want you in the house for my own sake. You do me good.”
They discussed the matter for some time, Diantha objecting mainly to the suddenness of it all. “I'm a slow thinker,” she said, “and this is so—so attractive that I'm suspicious of it. I had the other thing all planned—the girls practically engaged.”