“Well, my dear,” said the authoress, when she had got her samovar started, “tell me about yourself.”
But she didn’t need much telling; aside from the letter she had had from the librarian in Brownsville Landing, she could see in one shrewd glance that Frances would “do”; was able to realise, as only an imitation could, how honest, how genuine was this girl.
She engaged her then and there, said she was “strangely attracted” by her. And urged her to take up her duties at once.
“Send home for your things,” she advised, “and settle right down to-night in your comfy little room. That’s the way I always like to do things—on the spur of the moment.”
“I’d like to, but I couldn’t. They’d worry at home.”
“Send a telegram, honey,” Miss Eppendorfer suggested.
It was her first telegram, too, and it gave her a delightful sense of adventure, and of defiance, for she knew that Minnie would disapprove.
Miss Eppendorfer opened the door of a tiny room, which, she said, was to be Frankie’s “very own.”
“Isn’t it dear?” she asked. “I think I must have known when I furnished it, that someone just like you was coming to me some day. It expresses you, don’t you think so?”
At first Frances thought it a delightful room, furnished all in wicker even to the bed and decorated in gay chintz; there were candles on the dressing table with rose-covered shades which at once took her eye, and a brocade glove box. She felt that she would be tremendously happy in such a nest.