“It’s disgraceful that Teddy is so unwilling to study, and his father is determined to have him enter with Greek. If I had my way he’d give it up. Now I suppose that we shall have to have a tutor. It will be a nuisance to have an extra man in the house, but I suppose it can’t be helped. If it were anything but Greek I suppose that we might have a woman, but as it is, I suppose that we must make the best of it.”
As this conversation came back to her, Julia wondered that at the time she had not thought of Pamela. Possibly it was because the words had not been addressed to her directly that they had made so little impression. That very night she would write to Mrs. Hadwin, and if it was not too late, she would do her best to get the position for Pamela.
“Pamela,” she whispered, after they had taken their seats in the returning car, “Pamela, I feel almost certain that I can find something for you to do this summer. If it isn’t the thing that I have in mind this minute it will be something similar. I can’t say more at present, but I wish that you would trust me and believe me entirely your friend.”
“Thank you, of course I trust you. You have been so kind ever since the very first day. You remember my fountain pen?”
Both girls laughed at the remembrance.
“Because I’ve been so despondent this evening you mustn’t think that I am always forlorn,” said Pamela, “only it is very hard sometimes for a girl to work out things all alone, and I really have no one to advise me.”
“Sometimes I feel very lonely, too,” said Julia; and as Pamela’s hand touched hers in a mute response, she felt that they were now really going to understand each other.
That very evening Julia wrote to Mrs. Hadwin, and so strong did she make her case that before the end of the week all the arrangements had been made, and Pamela was the engaged tutor for Teddy. Her term was to last three months from the last week in June, and Pamela was to accompany the family to the seashore. The change of air was in itself likely to be good for Pamela, and Julia congratulated herself on the sudden thought that had brought this piece of good luck to her friend.
“Yet if Pamela had not been able to show such a fine record for her work in the classics, any effort of mine might have been perfectly useless.”