"The master is your friend, darling. He loves you."
"What can he do? He is worse off than I am. How can he bear my aunt's taunts about money, and all she has brought him? If I were a man, I would—"
"If you were a married man with a wife and daughters, you would not find it easy to run away from your home ties, though they may feel a little tight sometimes. And what could you do, dearie, if you left The Chase?"
"That is my trouble, Sarah. I would go as a governess, but they all make game, and sneer at the idea of such a thing. I am not accomplished, and people seem to advertise only for ladies who know everything. Servants with clever fingers like yours are much better off than the half-taught children of gentlemen. They get good wages, and are so independent. They generally spend a great deal on clothes, but they are not obliged to do so. Do you think any one would take me as a nursemaid? Not to tiny babies; I could not attend to them, though I should dearly love it, for I have never been amongst them. But I could look after older children, and I can sew well."
"What! Go as a servant. Only a servant! Oh, Miss Joyce, if the master could know!"
Sarah lifted her hands in horror; but Joyce said—
"If he could tell me what course to take, knowing all, he would say I was doing right; right to take any honest work whereby I might earn my bread. Right to undertake only what I am qualified to do."
"Well, then, darling, say nursery governess."
"Sarah, I have looked the papers through for weeks, and I have read plenty of advertisements of ladies offering to take such places for nothing but a home. They do not always get them, for the advertisements are repeated again and again. Now, I cannot go for nothing, for I need clothes, and I have not much money. But plenty of people offer good wages for nurses, so I will go as a nurse, if any one will have me. My clothes will do for a servant, though they are not nearly so good as yours, Sarah."
The girl glanced down at her poor, coarse black gown and burst into tears. It had been bought only as a makeshift, in the small country town near her old home, and her uncle had said, "Your aunt will see that you are properly provided as soon as we reach The Chase. She would not care for Welton dressmaking or materials."