“Dear Madame, Having fully considered the matter, we are prepared to offer you a place on our staff. The work required was explained to you yesterday. For this we offer a salary of 200 pounds per annum. Should you signify your acceptance of these terms, we will send you our usual form of agreement. I am yours faithfully, Jacob Bircham.
“To Miss Raeburn.”
“Commend me to people who don't raise one's expectations!” said Erica, rapturously. “Three cheers for my dear, stiff old editor!”
So that anxiety was over, and Erica was most thankful to have such a load taken off her mind. The comfort of it helped her through a very trying summer.
CHAPTER XXIII. Erica to the Rescue
Isabel: I have spirit to do anything that appears not foul
in the truth of my spirit.
Duke: Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.
Measure for Measure
It was the first of September. Watering places were crowded with visitors, destruction had begun among the partridges, and a certain portion of the hard-working community were taking their annual holiday.
Raeburn, whose holidays were few and far between, had been toiling away all through the summer months in town. This evening, as he sat in his stifling little study, he had fallen into a blank fit of depression. He could neither work nor read. Strong as his nature was, it was not always proof against this grim demon, which avenged itself on him for overtasking his brain, shortening his hours of sleep, and in other ways sacrificing himself to his work. Tonight, however, there was reason for his depression; for while he sat fighting his demon at home, Erica had gone to Charles Osmond's church it was the evening of her baptism.
Of course it was the necessary sequence of the confession she had made a few months before, and Raeburn had long known that it was inevitable; but none the less did he this evening suffer more acutely than he had yet suffered, realizing more fully his child's defection The private confession had startled, shocked, grieved him inexpressibly; but the public profession, with its sense of irrevocableness, filled his heart with a grief for which he could find no single ray of comfort.