“How delightful! I’ll keep the appointment, Mr. Lancaster,” said Jeanette. “Miss Braithwaite, do you know why I’m here to-day?”
“Because you knew how glad I’d be to see my little Jeanette again?” suggested Miss Braithwaite.
“Dear Miss Braithwaite, I hope you are!” said Jeanette, touching Miss Braithwaite’s hand. “That’s dear of you, but that’s not why. We are in desperate straits for a housekeeper. She must not be an ordinary person, but someone quite extraordinary. Father is going away, to be gone a year; possibly more. Mother is in wretchedly bad health; father will not leave to me the responsibility for that great house of ours, the children and the servants; rightly or wrongly, he doesn’t consider me competent to it. He wants a woman higher above suspicion than Cæsar’s wife; competent to take charge; good, and she should not be a common person, or the servants will not obey her, and I doubt that the children would; they’re keen-eyed little animals! I suggested to father that he had these qualities compounded in a laboratory, and the form containing them somehow galvanized into the semblance of a living human being, but he said: ‘Before we resort to such extreme measures to get the unlikely person we want, you run over to visit your uncle at Beaconhite, and see Miss Miriam Braithwaite. She is a such a good Roman that she has acquired some of St. Peter’s quality of fisher of men; she has all sorts of ramifications out, and no end of all kinds of people on her lines. Quite possibly she may know precisely the person we need, and one who equally needs us.’ So here I am, Miss Braithwaite, at your mercy.”
“Dear me, that’s a hard order to fill! Can you suggest anyone, Anselm?” began Miss Braithwaite, when Cis interrupted with an exclamation.
“Miss Gallatin!” she cried. “Nice, queer, splendid Miss Hannah Gallatin!”
“The very person! But why do you think she’d go, Cicely?” said Miss Braithwaite. “She takes boarders, and is going on well, I think?”
“I’m sure she perfectly detests taking boarders,” insisted Cis. “I believe she’d love to be with people like the Lucases, with children to help bring up, and someone she’d love, like Miss Jeanette! I’m sure she’s horribly lonely; she was dear and good to me; she would adore Miss Jeanette. Wouldn’t it be all right to ask her?”
“I am sure that Miss Adair has hit it!” cried Mr. Lancaster, rising. “I know Miss Gallatin well, and she is lonely, and she does loathe her present surroundings. I’m going home; I pass near her house. Would you like me to sound her for you, Miss Lucas?”
“I’d be most grateful,” returned Jeanette. “Though it makes my head whirl to find the impossible right around the corner, turning possible under my eyes! I had no idea of getting so much as a clue to a person!”
“This is the House of the Thaumaturgi; you see your friend, Miss Adair, is getting their powers; this suggestion was hers,” said Mr. Lancaster, and said good night.