As he again locked up my emeralds in his safe he kindly asked how much money I needed and begged that in the future I would permit him to advance for me if I should need any, and furthermore, "as to the board and expenses here," he said, "Mr. Edwards and I will arrange all that when he is well—entirely well." My friends would have been glad to advance me the money but I did not wish to trouble them.
Through the goodness of God and the skill of my kind physician, my loved ones were spared to me, and one day, some time after they were well, as I was reading the paper to my husband, I chanced across an advertisement for a teacher of Latin in Miss McIntosh's school. The professor was going abroad and wanted some one to take his place during his absence. The chuckle of delight which I involuntarily gave as I read it, provoked from my Soldier the remark that I was keeping something very good all to myself. I slyly determined that this little suspicion should be verified and that I would make an application at once for the position; then, if I should fail, I alone would suffer from the disappointment. So, just as soon as I could arrange it, I donned my best clothes, assumed a most dignified mien, went to the number advertised and asked for the professor.
I was shown into the primmest of parlors—the kind of room one feels so utterly alone in, without even the suspicion of a spirit around to keep your own spirit company. Each piece of furniture was placed with mathematical precision, and all was ghost-proof. The proprietress, who came in response to my call, seemed put up in much the same order. She was tall and angular, and her grizzly-red hair was arranged in three large puffs (like fortifications, I thought) on each side of her long, thin face, high cheek-bones, Roman nose, and eyes crowded up together under gold-rimmed spectacles. As she held my card in her hand and looked at me with a narrow-gauge gaze, piercing my inmost thoughts, and with that discouraging "Well!-what-can-I-do-for-you?" expression, I felt all my courage going. My necessities aroused me from my cowardice, and I said as bravely as I could:
"I have had the good fortune to read your advertisement, madam, in the paper this morning, and have come in answer to it. May I see the professor?"
Looking curiously at my card and then over her glasses at me, she said:
"The advertisement was for a teacher, not for a pupil."
"I am perfectly aware of that," I answered, "and came in response, to offer the professor my services as a teacher."
A most quizzical expression bunched up the corners of her mouth and wiggled across her little colorless eyes as she said:
"I will send the professor down to you."
Looking over her spectacles again, as if for a verification of her first impression of me, she left the room.