When Margie appeared, clad in a neat, close-fitting black dress, immaculate collar and blameless cuffs, and a sweet little black bonnet—half Quakerish, half coquettish—beneath which her wavy brown hair was smoothly brushed back from the temples, Mrs. Beach felt that here at last was an ideal attendant.
No fringe,—not even a love-lock,—no earrings or ornaments; only a jet brooch to fasten the linen collar. Yes, and here were the fine health (bright eyes and complexion showed this), the very pleasant looks, and, no doubt, the good temper—the three things the invalid especially desired.
Mrs. Beach was charmed with Margie's frank, natural manners; even her straightforward confession of inexperience showed the girl's truthfulness, and was a sort of pledge for the future. The interview did not last long, and when she left the cosy, roomy house, standing in its old-fashioned garden and half hidden among trees, it was with the understanding that she should come and take up her abode there that day week.
Margie had a couple of hours to travel by rail before reaching home, so she had plenty of time in which to consider how she should break the news to her mother and sisters. For she had come to her resolution and had made her own plans without consulting any one.
When at last she found an opportunity to make her announcement, it created a very considerable sensation. No real opposition was threatened to her "venture," but her mother's remark summed up what perhaps was in the minds of all the others.
"Good gracious, child! What have you done? Why, my dear, I do believe you have taken a situation little better than that of a servant."
* * * * * *
If Margie had expected a pathway strewn with roses, and with no thorns among them, she would have been sorely disappointed. Happily, she was too sensible to have any such expectations. She had seen enough of life to know by this time that we must take it as we find it, accepting good and evil, joy and sorrow, fulfilled hopes and baffled purposes, as they come. And by the time a month had gone by, the girl had become familiar with her surroundings, and had also come to know very fairly well the people in the house.
It was rather a curious household, for it held a somewhat mixed community, and, consequently, there was friction now and again, or worse.
Mrs. Beach, however, had turned out to be just what Margie, during their brief interview, had thought her. She was a kind, motherly, unselfish woman, whose invalidism had not soured her temper, or made her suspicious or morbid. She treated Margie from the first with kindness and consideration, and the girl would have been quite content if she could have been alone with her employer, and had nothing to think of but her duties, which were not too hard for her strength at all, or distasteful to her in any way.