“Duane. Millicent Duane.”
“I never have time to beat about the bush. How would you like to come and read to me an hour every day? I’ve lost my reader and I like your voice.”
“Oh, Miss Frink”—the girl’s hands clasped together unconsciously. “I know Damaris. She was so sorry to have offended you. Her hair will grow again very soon—”
“Well, her common sense won’t,” returned Miss Frink impatiently. “When a thing is past with me it’s past. I have no post mortems. Think it over, Miss Duane.”
“But I can’t afford to lose my job, Miss Frink,” said the girl with soft eagerness. “They would never let me go for an hour a day, and my grandfather has just a small pension; we have to be very careful.”
That voice. That wholesome face. That delicately clean shining hair. Miss Frink smiled a little at the ingenuous lack of consciousness of the power of money.
“That would be my care,” she said. “Think it over.”
“Oh, of course, I should like it,” said Millicent, still with eagerness, “if it was right for me. It would give me so much more time with Grandpa. But there is Damaris! I can’t bear to think of hurting her feelings.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” said Miss Frink. “Business is business. You’ll hear from me again.”
A boy was called to carry the box and the purchaser departed leaving Millicent flushed, and happy, and apprehensive.