XXII.
I CLOSE MY BOOK.
By the rarest good fortune my grandmother started that afternoon for a
visit to an old friend at the seashore, and, in the mild excitement of
her departure, I do not think she noticed anything unusual in my
demeanor.
"And so your amanuensis has left you?" she remarked, as she was eating a
hasty luncheon. "Sister Sarah stopped for a moment and told me so. She
said there was another one ready to take the place, if you wanted her."
I tried to suppress my feelings, but I must have spoken sharply.
"Want her!" I exclaimed. "I want none of her!"
My grandmother looked at me for a moment.
"I shall be sorry, Horace," she said, "if you find that the sisters do
not work to suit you. I hoped that you might continue to employ them,
because the House of Martha is at such a convenient distance, and offers
you such a variety of assistance to choose from; and also because you
would contribute to a most worthy cause. You know that all the money
they may make is to go to hospitals and that sort of thing."
"I was a little afraid, however," she continued, after a pause, "that
the sister you engaged might not suit you. She was so much younger than
the others that I feared that, away from the restraints of the
institution, she might be a little frivolous.
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