"Oh, yes."
"And can punctuate after a fashion?"
"I think so."
"You don't look it; far too womanly, unless your appearance is deceptive, to know the true difference between a semicolon and a hyphen. No matter; you have every qualification, it seems, including a good manner and a pleasant smile. You're engaged--on probation; I mean to say, for this one week we'll consider you simply my guest, but willing to help me out with my correspondence. Then, if you like the place and I like you as much as I hope I shall, you'll become my personal secretary at a salary of twenty-five dollars a week and all expenses. No--don't thank me; thank your sensible eyes."
Mrs. Gosnold laughed lightly, gave Sally's hand a final but barely perceptible pressure, and released it.
"Now Thomas will show you your room. Mrs. Standish tells me she has promised to outfit you; her maid will bring you more suitable things by the time you've had your tub and some rest. Plenty of time; we lunch at one-thirty."
The girl stammered some sort of an acknowledgment; she was never able to recall precisely what she said, in truth, but it served. And then she was amazedly ascending the broad staircase and following the flunky's back down a long, wide, drafty corridor to a room at one extreme of the building--a small room, daintily furnished and bright with summery cretonne, its individual bath adjoining.
"I'll be sending the maid to you at once, ma'am," said Thomas, and shut the door.
Sally wandered to a window, lifted the shade, and looked out with bewildered eyes.
From the front of the house to the edge of the cliff the grounds were as severely composed as an Italian formal garden; but to one side, screened by high box hedges, a tennis-court was in the active possession of four young people, none of them, apparently over twenty years of age. Their calls and clear laughter rang in the quietness, vibrant with careless joy of living.