Susan, who was a little in advance, came rapidly up the walk, and the older woman greeted her with the words:
"My dear, I have seen him!"
"Yes, he just passed us at the corner, and I wondered if you were looking. Do tell us what you think of him."
She sat down in a low chair by the teacher's side, while Virginia went over to the cage and stood gazing thoughtfully at the singing bird.
"Well, I don't think his nose spoils him," replied Miss Priscilla after a minute, "but there's something foreign looking about him, and I hope Cyrus isn't thinking seriously about putting him into the bank."
"That was the first thing that occurred to father," answered Susan, "but Oliver told me last night while we were unpacking his books—he has a quantity of books and he kept them even when he had to sell his clothes—that he didn't see to save his life how he was going to stand it."
"Stand what?" inquired Miss Priscilla, a trifle tartly, for after the vicissitudes of her life it was but natural that she should hesitate to regard so stable an institution as the Dinwiddie Bank as something to be "stood." "Why, I thought a young man couldn't do better than get a place in the bank. Jinny's father was telling me in the market last Saturday that he wanted his nephew John Henry to start right in there if they could find room for him."
"Oh, of course, it's just what John Henry would like," said Virginia, speaking for the first time.
"Then if it's good enough for John Henry, it's good enough for Oliver, I reckon," rejoined Miss Priscilla. "Anybody who has mixed with beggars oughtn't to turn up his nose at a respectable bank."
"But he says it's because the bank is so respectable that he doesn't think he could stand it," answered Susan.