It contained a request, prepared at Hiram's suggestion, that Mr. Burns would admit him in his family. The other ran his eye hastily over it. A slight frown contracted his brow.
'Impossible!' he exclaimed. 'My domestic arrangements will not permit of such a thing. Quite impossible.'
'So I told father, but he said it would do no harm to write. He did not think you would be offended.'
'Offended! certainly not.'
'Perhaps,' continued Hiram, 'you will be kind enough to recommend a good place to me. I should wish to reside in a religious family, where no other boarders are taken.'
The desire was a proper one, but Hiram's tone did not have the ring of the true metal. It grated slightly on Mr. Burns's moral nerves—a little of his first aversion came back—but he suppressed it, and promised to endeavor to think of a place which should meet Hiram's wishes. It was now Saturday. It was understood Hiram should commence his duties the following Monday. This arranged, he took leave of his employer, and returned home.
That evening Mr. Burns told his daughter he was about to relieve her from the drudgery—daily increasing—of copying letters and taking care of so many papers, by employing a confidential clerk. Sarah at first was grieved; but when her father declared he should talk with her just as ever about every thing he did or proposed to do, and that he thought in the end the new clerk would be a great relief to him, she was content.
'But whom have you got, father,' (she always called him 'father,') 'for so important a situation?'
'His name is Meeker—Hiram Meeker—a young man very highly recommended to me from Hampton.'
'I wonder if it was not he whom I met last Saturday!'