"I want to know, Selina, if you'll coach me for an examination. A teacher out at the Institute where I am, is going to quit. I can't do that myself, so the next best thing is to get his place if I can, as it pays better than my own. I understand the finger-reading, both the Roman and the Braille, working in the type I found myself interested, but the position calls for a grade-school teacher's certificate which I have to pass an examination to get."
"Emma!" said Auntie. "And you have the courage? You must have been well along when you went to work and taught yourself how to set type? And to get yourself ready again——"
"That's right, Miss Ann Eliza, I'm forty last month. But what's forty when you come to think about it? It's ten, fifteen years younger than it used to be. My grandmother died when she was forty-eight, and I always think of her as an old person in a frilly cap."
"I'm forty-eight myself. You're quite right about it, for I certainly haven't any disposition yet toward caps. Emma," almost wistfully, "if I had your advantage of those eight years I'd ask you to show me how to fit myself for something. Many's the time I've asked myself if I wasn't capable of something beyond rolling and whipping cambric bands and polishing brasses. I've looked at you more than once in church, and envied you."
Auntie! Darling Auntie! Confessing to Miss Emma McRanney that she envied her! It filled Selina with a greater fury of dislike and distaste for this person. She did want work, and had said so, but she didn't want to teach Miss Emma McRanney!
This lady was speaking again. "After I'm home in the evening, I get supper for my brother and myself. Try it a while, Miss Ann Eliza, before you quite envy me. So I'll have to ask you to give me an hour in the evenings, Selina, say three times a week."
If anything could make the proposition more distasteful it was this.
"I taught in our orphan asylum after I graduated, until I got my present place, Selina, so I'm not on altogether new ground, though no certificate was required there. It's not quite such a crime against your fellow-man to be blind, so I've discovered, as to be an orphan. Anything, even Emma McRanney with no certificate, was good enough for orphans, whereas I have to be guaranteed in this case. You're unfortunate if you're blind, but the state does look after you, but to be an orphan, leaves you convicted of your own guilt, and not a leg to stand on. If you're ever compelled to choose between these things, Selina, don't be foolish enough to be an orphan. They pay teachers so little to instruct them, even I had to leave. I ought to tell you these examinations I want to take come late in March. That'll give us six weeks. I'm promised the place if I can get the certificate, and I've got some former questions from the examining board thinking we could find out from these where I stand and what there is to do."
Selina roused herself. She didn't want to teach Miss McRanney! "I've had so little experience, Miss Emma, I ought to tell you I'm not at all sure I'm competent."