"I will take the place," Bessie answered, unhesitatingly, feeling that, singular as it might seem to serve her aunt, she would rather do that than go to a stranger. "I will take the place, and do the best I can, and if I fail in some things at first, you will tell me what to do. How long will it take to earn two hundred and fifty-five pounds at two dollars and a half a week?"
Miss Betsey must have felt cold again, for she rushed to the open window and shut it with a bang, while for an instant she wavered in her determination. Then, thinking to herself, "I may as well see what stuff she really is made of," she returned to Bessie, who, if she had not been quite so anxious and nervous, would have felt amused at her eccentric behavior.
Without telling how long it would take to earn two hundred and fifty-five pounds at two dollars and a half a week, Miss Betsey said:
"Then it is a bargain, and you are my housemaid really, and willing to do a housemaid's duties, and take a house maid's place. Do you understand all that means?"
"I think so," Bessie answered, wondering if she should have to share the cook's bed.
As if divining her thoughts, her aunt rejoined:
"One exception I shall make in your favor. You will occupy the little room next my own, at the head of the stairs. You can go up there at once if you like, and I will see that your trunks are brought from the station."
"Oh, thank you," Bessie said, and in her eyes there was a look of gratitude which nearly upset Miss McPherson's resolution again, and did make her open the window as she passed it on her way up stairs with Bessie.
Just as the room had been fitted up years ago, when she was expecting the child Bessie, just so it was now when the girl Bessie entered it. The same single bed with its muslin hangings, the same little bureau, with its pretty toilet-set, now somewhat faded and passee in style, but showing what it had been, and in a corner the big doll with all its paraphernalia around it.
"Oh, auntie," Bessie cried, as she stepped across the threshold, "what a lovely little room! and it almost looks as if it had been intended for me when I was younger."