"You may call it a whim, a fancy, a notion. I do not know that anything will ever come of it. I could wish there might—but that is a very cloudy and misty château en Espagne, and I do not much look at it. The present thing is practical. Will you take the place, and do what you can for these girls?"
"What ever put this thing in your head?"
"What matter, if it is a good thing?"
"I must know more about it. Who are these people?"
"Connections of Mrs. Wishart. Perfectly respectable."
"What are they, then?"
"Country people. They belong, I suppose, to the farming population of a
New England village. That is very good material."
"Certainly—for some things. How do they live—by keeping boarders?"
"Nothing of the kind! They live, I suppose,—I don't know how they live; and I do not care. They live as farmers, I suppose. But they are poor."
"And so, without education?"