“Yes, my dear, at ruinous prices. Unless you have got a great deal of money, you would be quite penniless before you could get any employment. And, by the way, what sort of employment do you expect to find?”
“I hardly know. I might be an amanuensis for some lady or gentleman——”
“For no gentleman. I put my foot right down on that. Let the men alone, my dear—unless they happen to be your very nearest male relations. And to enter a lady’s employment you would have to have good references. I do hope you have references, my dear?”
“No,” said Lilith, “I have none; not one; and circumstances are all so adverse that I cannot hope to get one.”
“Dear me!” said Mrs. Ponsonby, taking a long look into Lilith’s face. “But you are all right. I am sure you are all right. You are not the sort of child to run away from your father or mother to seek your fortune. I tell you what I will do; I will be your referee. That is—do you write a fair hand, spell words correctly, and compose sentences grammatically, as an amanuensis should do? For, you know, you may have to answer letters as well as to write from dictation.”
“Yes, ma’am, I can indeed. I have been accustomed to do all that for my dear lost foster-father. The next time the train stops I will write a specimen and prove it,” said Lilith.
“Very well, then,” said the Benevolent “Crank,” “I will be your referee. And as to your lodging in New York, I will take you to a cheap but very respectable house kept by the widow of a Methodist minister. She has no fashionable boarders, my dear, for she lives on —— Street, near —— Avenue, and fashion has left that part of the city these fifty years or more. She boards some of the public school teachers. I will take you to her house to-night before I go to my daughter’s, mind you. If Saxony comes to meet me, and is in a hurry, he may go home in the street cars, and I will take the carriage and carry you to Mrs. Downie’s,” said the new friend, who had worked herself up into a benevolent fever on the subject of the desolate young creature.
“Oh, how good you are to me! How wonderfully good! How do you know that I am deserving of your goodness? How do you know that I am not an impostor?” said Lilith, catching her friend’s hand and covering it with grateful kisses. “Yes! how should you know but that I am a very foolish, wicked girl?”
“Good Lord, child! how do I know anything, for that matter—how do I know light from darkness, except through my eyes and my understanding? That is the way I know you from an impostor. How I thank the Lord that I met you before you fell into the Lion’s Den of this great city!”
“And do I not thank the Divine Providence—oh, do I not? And thank you, oh, so much!” exclaimed Lilith, clasping her hands in the fervency of her utterance.