It seems she had been employed, at sundry times, in the house of a Mr. Bowman, a wealthy merchant living on Mt. Vernon Street. This gentleman had lost his wife some months before. The only child arising from this union was a daughter, about ten years of age. Her father did not like schools, either public or private, for a child of her years, and preferred that his daughter, for the present, should be educated at home. Hitherto she had been left pretty much to herself, and had never been willing to apply herself to study.
Mr. Bowman was now looking out for a suitable governess for his daughter, and it had struck Mrs. O'Grady—who, though ignorant and uncultivated herself, was sharp-sighted enough to detect the marks of education and refinement in another—that Mrs. Codman would suit him.
So Mrs. O'Grady, in her zeal, made bold to intimate to the servants, through whom it reached Mr. Bowman, that she knew a sweet lady who would be just the one for a governess for the young lady.
Now the recommendation of an Irish washer-woman may not be considered the most valuable in an affair of this kind; but it so happened that the suggestion reached Mr. Bowman at a time when he was so oppressed with business cares that he did not know how to spare the time necessary to seek out a governess. He accordingly summoned Mrs. O'Grady to a conference, and asked some hasty questions of her, which she answered by such a eulogistic account of Mrs. Codman, whose condescending kindness had quite won her heart, that Mr. Bowman desired her to request Mrs. Codman to call upon him the next day at a stated hour.
"So you see, Miss Codman," concluded the warmhearted Irish woman, "that you're in luck, and all you've got to do is to call upon Mr. Bowman to-morrow, and you'll get a nice home, and won't have to work any more at your sewing."
Mrs. Codman did not at once reply.
"And won't you go?" asked Mrs. O'Grady, wondering at her silence.
"I think I will," said Mrs. Codman; "and I feel much obliged to you, my good friend, for saying a kind word for me, though I do not feel at all confident that I shall obtain this place."
"Niver fear for that," said the sanguine washer-woman; "he'll see at once that you're a rale lady, and it's in luck he'll be to get you."
Undoubtedly the position of a governess would be more remunerative, and less laborious, than that of a seamstress, and, under present circumstances, Mrs. Codman felt that she could not afford to throw the chance away. She retired that night a little more cheerful and hopeful than would have been the case had not this door of escape from the evil of want been shown her.