To the mother the new idea did not at once commend itself. She knew better than we girls did how many twenty-five-cent tickets must be sold to make a good round sum in dollars. She knew the thrifty people of Highland looked long at a quarter before they parted with it for mere amusement, and still further, she doubted whether Dr. Wainwright would like the thing. But Amy clapped her hands gleefully. She thought it fine.
"You must give a studio reading," she said. "I can manage that, mother; if Miss Antoinette Drury will lend her studio, and we send out invitations for 'Music and Reading, and Tea at Five,' the prestige part will be taken care of. The only difficulty that I can see is that Grace would have to go to a lot of places and travel about uncomfortably; and then she'd need a manager. Wouldn't she, Frances?"
"I see no trouble," said I, "in her being her own manager. She would go to a new town with a letter to the pastor of the leading church, or his wife, call in at the newspaper office and get a puff; puffs are always easily secured by enterprising young women, and they help to fill up the paper besides. Then she would hire a hall and pay for it out of her profits, and the business could be easily carried forward."
"Is this the New Woman breaking her shell?" said mother. "I don't think I quite like the interpretation scheme either as Amy or as you outline it, though I am open to persuasion. Here is the doctor. Let us hear what he says."
It was not Dr. Wainwright, but my father, Dr. Raeburn, except on a Friday, the most genial of men. Amy perched herself on his knee and ran her slim fingers through his thick dark hair. To him our plans were explained, and he at once gave them his approval.
"As I understand you, Gracie," Dr. Raeburn said, "you wish this reading business as a stepping-stone. You would form classes, would you not? And your music could also be utilized. You had good instruction, I fancy, both here and over the water."
"Indeed, yes, Dr. Raeburn; and I could give lessons in music, but they wouldn't bring me in much, here at least."
"Come to my study," said the doctor, rising. "Amy, you have ruffled up my hair till I look like a cherub before the flood. Come, all of you, Dorothy and the kids."
"You don't call us kids, do you, papa?"
"Young ladies, then, at your service," said the doctor, with a low bow. "I've a letter from my old friend, Vernon Hastings. I'll read it to you when I can find it," said the good man, rummaging among the books, papers, and correspondence with which his great table was littered. "Judge Hastings," the doctor went on, "lost his wife in Venice a year ago. He has three little girls in need, of special advantages; he cannot bear to send them away to school, and his mother, who lives with him and orders the house, won't listen to having a resident governess. Ah, this is the letter!" The doctor read: