“Humph! It’s perfectly selfish on my part; I expect to have a lot of fun getting it started; maybe the girls will let me dig in the garden now and then. There’ll be a garden and tennis courts, and they must have a dance once a week, and I might drop in occasionally.”
“Oh, they’ll adore you!”
“Well, I don’t mean to bother them. There are such houses in New York and Chicago and I’m going to visit them and get all the practical ideas I can before I say anything about it. I need some one to help me collect data and look after the thousand and one details of planning. We’ll call it a secretaryship. Now, Grace,” and Miss Reynolds beamed on her, “will you help me?”
“Why, Miss Reynolds!”
“It might be just what you need right now,” Miss Reynolds went on, ignoring the girl’s questioning, troubled look. “In fact, my dear child, you put the whole idea in my head by things you’ve dropped from time to time about the problems of young business women.”
“But now—since you know——”
“Dear child, it’s knowing that makes me all the more eager to have your help! It’s only people who make mistakes and suffer that really understand. And we’ve got to have some heart in our club! So we’ll call it settled and we’ll go to New York two weeks from today and begin our work.”
II
Grace’s announcement at home that she was to leave Shipley’s to become Miss Reynolds’s secretary greatly pleased her mother, who saw in the change a social advancement. It was much more in keeping with her idea of the Durland dignity for a daughter of the house to serve a lady of wealth as secretary than to be selling ready-made-clothing. And Mrs. Durland hoped Grace would appreciate the privilege of becoming identified with so praiseworthy a philanthropy.
Ethel, possibly jealous of Miss Reynolds’s growing interest in Grace, expressed at once her concern as to proper religious influences in the proposed club. She confessed to disappointment that Miss Reynolds had not manifested more interest in the girls’ club in Dr. Ridgely’s church. Miss Reynolds might very easily have given the church the benefit of the money she would spend on an independent work. It was not quite loyal, she thought, to the church and all it stood for; but she hoped the souls of the young women who lived in the club would be properly cared for and that Dr. Ridgely would be on the board; she favored strong boards to administer such institutions.