“If she is out of place,” Francine went on, “she may be just the sort of person I am looking for.”
“You?” Emily asked, in astonishment.
Francine refused to explain until she got an answer to her question. “Tell me first,” she said, “is Mrs. Ellmother engaged?”
“No; she wants an engagement, and she asks me to be her reference.”
“Is she sober, honest, middle-aged, clean, steady, good-tempered, industrious?” Francine rattled on. “Has she all the virtues, and none of the vices? Is she not too good-looking, and has she no male followers? In one terrible word—will she satisfy Miss Ladd?”
“What has Miss Ladd to do with it?”
“How stupid you are, Emily! Do put the woman’s card down on the table, and listen to me. Haven’t I told you that one of my masters has declined to have anything more to do with me? Doesn’t that help you to understand how I get on with the rest of them? I am no longer Miss Ladd’s pupil, my dear. Thanks to my laziness and my temper, I am to be raised to the dignity of ‘a parlor boarder.’ In other words, I am to be a young lady who patronizes the school; with a room of my own, and a servant of my own. All provided for by a private arrangement between my father and Miss Ladd, before I left the West Indies. My mother was at the bottom of it, I have not the least doubt. You don’t appear to understand me.”
“I don’t, indeed!”
Francine considered a little. “Perhaps they were fond of you at home,” she suggested.
“Say they loved me, Francine—and I loved them.”