“Out of a city of six million people, why did you pick upon me?”
and that, of course, was impossible as a noble sentiment.
The next morning I set out on my Joyous Venture. The Osgood Harpers lived on the Heights in a great colonial house set up high on a hill and approached by long, winding walks. It was more than a mile from the street-car, but I enjoyed the walk through those beautiful estates. I couldn’t have served a tennis ball in any direction without hitting a millionaire.
Mrs. Harper was a stout and tremendously impressive lady about forty years old. She had steely blue eyes that looked right through me until I began to have horrible fears that there was something wrong with my appearance and she would presently say that I would not do at all. But she didn’t; all she said was, “So you are Miss Brewster, are you?” and motioned me to sit down at a writing table.
She had received me in a cozy little sitting room which opened out of her bedroom, and it seemed that this was to be my office. She started right in to lay out my work for me and I didn’t have much time to look around at the beautiful furnishings. The work was far different from anything we had had in school, but very interesting, and I took to it from the start. Mrs. Harper is chairman of countless committees, and secretary of several societies, and there were quantities of notices to send out to committee members, and letters to write to business men soliciting subscriptions to various funds and things like that, all to be written on heavy linen paper of finest quality, bearing the Harper monogram in embossed gold in the upper left-hand corner.
I worked away with a will and the morning hours flew. I would have worked right on past one o’clock without knowing it if there hadn’t been an interruption. Shortly after noon the door opened and a girl of about seventeen walked in. She was extremely pretty; that is, at first glance she was. She was very fair, with bright pink cheeks and big blue eyes. Her yellow hair was plastered down over her forehead in an exaggerated style, and monstrous pearl earrings dangled from her ears. She had evidently just come in from outdoors, for she wore an all mink coat and held a mink cap in her hand. Without a glance in my direction she began chatting to Mrs. Harper in a thin, nasal, high-pitched voice. I dropped my eyes and went on with my work. In a minute I could feel her staring at me.
“Ethel,” said Mrs. Harper, as soon as she could get the floor, “this is Miss Brewster, my stenographer. Miss Brewster, my daughter Ethel.”
I acknowledged the introduction pleasantly; Miss Ethel favored me with another stare, murmured something in an indistinct tone and then immediately turned her back on me and went on talking to her mother. Right then and there my admiration for the “first families” got a setback; I didn’t admire Ethel Harper’s manners, not a little bit. She had “snob” written all over her features. I could see that she classed me with the servants and as such she didn’t trouble herself to be polite to me.
“A lot there is to be gained by associating with her,” I said to myself. “I’ll be just as cool and dignified as possible when she’s around. She won’t get another chance to snub me.”
But in spite of her I was enthusiastic about the position and could hardly wait until I got there the next day. Mrs. Harper went out shortly after I arrived and I worked alone. Ethel Harper came home from school at noon and went through the room on the way to her mother’s, but I rattled away on the typewriter and never looked up. She came out soon and went into her own room, which was on the other side. In about fifteen minutes I heard her call me.