“Whatever you have been accustomed to give to a girl in that place will satisfy me,” she said.
“There is only one thing I would like to ask,” she 453 added, with a slight hesitation and embarrassment of manner; “would it be convenient for me to have a room by myself?”
I nodded to my mother to answer in the affirmative.
The three girls who composed our establishment had usually roomed in one large apartment, but there was a small closet of a room which I had taken for books, fishing-rods, guns, and any miscellaneous property of my own. I mentally turned these out, and devoted the room to the newcomer, whose appearance interested me.
And, as my mother hesitated, I remarked, with the assured tone of master of the house, that “certainly she could have a small room to herself.”
“It is all I ask,” she briefly answered. “In that case, I will come for the same wages you paid the last girl in my situation.”
“When will you come?” said my mother.
“I am ready to come immediately. I only want time to go and order my things to be sent here.”
She rose and left us, saying that we might expect her that afternoon.
“Well, sir,” said my mother, “you seem to have taken it upon you to settle this matter on your own authority.”