"The other one got a thousand a year--you are worth more. Now, don't
decline, please. Let me tell you about it. I can see that you have
plans ahead, for this business; but it can't hurt you much to put them
off six months, say. Meantime, you could be practicing. Our place at
Santa Ulrica is almost as big as this one; there are lots of servants
and a great, weary maze of accounts to be kept, and it wouldn't be bad
practice for you--now, would it?"
Diantha's troubled eyes lit up. "No--you are right there," she said.
"If I could do it!"
"You'll have to do just that sort of thing when you are running your
business, won't you?" her visitor went on. "And the summer's not a good
time to start a thing like that, is it?"
Diantha meditated. "No, I wasn't going to. I was going to start
somewhere--take a cottage, a dozen girls or so--and furnish labor by the
day to the other cottages."
"Well, you might be able to run that on the side," said Mrs.
Weatherstone. "And you could train my girls, get in new ones if you
like; it doesn't seem to me it would conflict. But to speak to you
quite frankly, Miss Bell, I want you in the house for my own sake. You
do me good."
They discussed the matter for some time, Diantha objecting mainly to the
suddenness of it all. "I'm a slow thinker," she said, "and this is
so--so attractive that I'm suspicious of it.
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