"'Mrs. Blake is the quintessence of kindness. I am very glad to think you can live happily here until she or I can find some nice situation for you.'
"She had been smiling softly over her task, but her face clouded in an instant.
"'A situation. That's what everybody said at Besbery! We must find her a situation. And then Miss Grimshaw wanted me to be a dressmaker.'
"'You shall not be a dressmaker. I promise that.'
"'But, oh, what am I to be? I don't know half enough for a governess. I couldn't teach big girls German and French and drawing. I couldn't teach little boys Latin. And that's what everybody wants of a governess. I've read the advertisements in the newspapers.'
"'And as to being a nursery-governess, why, it's negro slavery!' said Martha.
"'I wouldn't mind the drudgery, only I hate children!" said Esperanza.
"This avowal shocked me. I looked at the soft, childlike countenance, and the speech seemed incongruous.
"'I have never had anything to do with children since my sister Lucy died,' she explained. 'I shouldn't understand them, and they would laugh at me and my fancies. After Lucy's death, I lived alone with father, always alone, he and I. The harmonium and the organ in the church close by were our only friends. Our clergyman was just civil to father, but I don't think he ever liked him. I heard him once tell the Bishop that his organist was an eccentricity. An eccentricity! That was all he could say about my father, who was ever so much cleverer than he.'
"She said this with pride, almost with defiance, looking me in the face as if she were challenging me to dispute the fact.