CHAPTER XV.

_WHAT A BIT OF SOAP DID._

MRS. HALLOWELL was quite satisfied with Rhoda's way of "taking hold."

Rhoda's work was to set and wait on the table, to take care of the dishes, to dust and once or twice a week to sweep the library and school-room, and to attend to the door. She found it very easy and not at all disagreeable; but all her philosophy could not prevent her eyes from filling sometimes, when she heard the girls practising or saw them tripping into the school-room with their books at the time of morning prayer. It was hard to dust and arrange the piano and organ and never touch the keys, but she had laid down a rigid rule for herself in that matter, and adhered to it. She did venture to ask for a book to read; and once, when Miss Hardy spoke to her in passing through the dining-room, she preferred another petition.

"How do you like your place, Rhoda? Do you feel at home?"

"Oh yes, ma'am; I like it very much."

"Mrs. Marshall said you spoke about having something to read. Miss Adams has the charge of the books, and will let you have anything you like. Is there anything else?"

"If you please, Miss Hardy, if I might come in to prayers," said Rhoda, with a little hesitation; "I generally have my work done by that time, and it would seem more like home."

"Certainly you can come," said Miss Hardy. "I am glad you spoke of it."

And thenceforth Rhoda joined the rest of the family at prayers, just as if—so Hetty said—she felt herself as good as anybody.

Hester and Rhoda did not get on very well together. Hester had been somewhat affronted, in the first place, by Rhoda's preferring "a little hole," as she said, to a room with her. Then, Rhoda had not been disposed to encourage the flood of gossip which Hetty poured forth concerning the teachers, the girls, and the neighbours. Then, Rhoda preferred sitting in her own room and reading or studying when her work was done to strolling about the streets. She went once or twice when Hester asked her to go shopping, and even went into a saloon and got some ice cream, but the third time she declined.

"You needn't be afraid," said Hetty. "Ayers's is a very nice place. Miss Hardy goes there herself and lets the girls go."

"Yes, I know, and see how much money they spend! Miss Sellers must get rid of as much as a dollar a week there, I should think."

"Well, what of it? Her family is rich, and she has lots of money."

"And I haven't lots of money nor any family," said Rhoda; "and what little I have I want to save for a special purpose. That is one reason why I don't like to go shopping. I see things that take my fancy, and am tempted to spend a quarter here and ten cents there for what I don't need at all. And 'that's the way the money goes,' you know."

"Oh, well, if you are such a miser, there's no more to be said; only I'm thankful I'm not."

"I don't think I am a miser, Hetty; but I am saving money for a special reason."

Then, Rhoda did not show a proper spirit, in Hetty's opinion. She was always ready to do all sorts of odd jobs, and seemed ambitious of accomplishing rather more than her allotted task.

"Let me do that," she said, one day, to Mrs. Hallowell, who was washing the urn and other silver at breakfast. "I am used to it. I took care of all the silver at Mrs. Ferrand's, and they used a great deal."

"I shall be glad if you will," answered Mrs. Hallowell.

And thenceforth Rhoda had the care of the silver.

"More fool you!" said Hetty. "Now you will have to do it all the time."

"That is just what I want," said Rhoda as she lifted the urn to put it away.

"Oh yes, no doubt," said Hetty, sarcastically, to Aunt Sarah, a very efficient and intelligent coloured woman, who was filling the place of cook for the present. "She just wants to get the blind side of Miss Hardy: that's what she wants, with her work and reading and going to prayers."

"She'll be smart if she does," remarked Aunt Sarah. "I've been working for Miss Hardy off and on a good many years, and I never found out that she had any 'blind side.' If you mean that she wants to please Miss Hardy, I guess you are right, and I guess she'll make it out. That's the kind Miss Hardy likes, you see. You'd better be taking pattern by her than finding fault with her, my girl."

Hetty twisted her head and said she "wasn't going to be a slave to nobody."

"You won't be a slave, nor nothing else," declared Sarah, "not if you don't mend your ways. I never did see a young gal with such slomiking ways, never. Down goes everything just where you happen to be, and there you leave it. I'd like to know how long that old petticoat of yours has been lying on the stairs, and this morning I found a hairbrush right on the top step. You'll have somebody's life to answer for some day, you'll see."

The time flew quickly, as it generally does with busy people; and there remained only a few days to the end of school.

"Well, Rhoda, I believe I have provided a home for you during vacation," said Miss Hardy, calling Rhoda into her room one evening. "Mrs. Elsmore, the doctor's wife, is going to take a cottage at Cape May for the season, and she wants a girl to take care of little Harry. It will be an easy place; for Harry is a good little fellow, and Mrs. Elsmore is a very pleasant woman. Do you think you would like to go? Say just what you think."

"I should like it ever so much," said Rhoda, with sparkling eyes. "I love children, and I always did want to see the ocean."

"You don't ask anything about the wages," said Miss Hardy, smiling.

"I thought you would settle that," answered Rhoda. "I shouldn't know how much I ought to ask."

"You must learn to be a woman of business. Mrs. Elsmore will give you two dollars a week. It that enough?"

"Oh yes, ma'am, plenty."

"You must make yourself a bathing-dress and get all the good out of it you can," remarked Miss Hardy. "Would you like to take something to read?"

"Yes, ma'am. I should like to take the first volume of 'The Pictorial History of England,' if you have no objection."

"Certainly I have not. Take two volumes if you like. You seem to be fond of solid reading."

"I can't say I am so very fond of it," answered Rhoda, candidly, "but I don't have much time, and I want to improve myself. I think history is rather horrid and disgusting a great many times, but I suppose one needs to know it, especially—I beg your pardon, ma'am," said Rhoda, becoming conscious that she was, as Mr. Ferrand would have said, "getting out of her station."

"For thinking history horrid? You need not do that, for I think so myself," said Miss Hardy, smiling. "Well, especially what?"

"Especially if one is thinking of teaching, I was going to say," answered Rhoda.

"You are right, Rhoda. Teachers are too apt to be deficient in general knowledge. They know their own special branches, and often very little beyond them; and I am afraid the same is true of many school-girls."

"I am sure it is so with Miss Isa," Rhoda ventured to say. "Her father never lets her read an amusing book—not even a magazine—for fear of dissipating her mind. Have you heard from her lately, Miss Hardy?"

"Not very lately. Her mother wrote that she was taking music and French lessons from very superior masters. I am afraid she works too hard."

"Indeed she does, Miss Hardy," said Rhoda; "and the mischief is she works all the time. She never has any real amusement or any time for idleness. I never see our young ladies going out with the boat or botanizing but I wish Miss Isa was with them. I know she will break down some day, and have fits or something. I like work as well as anybody, but I think idleness is very nice sometimes."

"Not only nice, but necessary. Well, Rhoda, I am glad you like my arrangements for you."

"That girl has an uncommon mind," observed Mrs. Marshall, who had been busy writing, but who had a way of seeing and hearing everything. "She ought to be doing something better than waiting on the table."

"I am thinking about her case," replied Miss Hardy. "I almost wish I had set her to teaching the little ones when she first came. She has very nice manners."

But Rhoda was not destined to see Cape May or to use her new bathing-suit this season. School had closed with the usual exercises, and all the scholars had gone. Hester had secured a place in a hotel at Cape May, much to her own delight. The teachers had gone their several ways, including Mrs. Marshall, who had set out for a visit to her only sister, in California; and the day came when the house was to be locked up and left to its own devices, and to the gambols of the mice and the centipedes.

"We will just go over the house once more," said Miss Hardy to Rhoda. "Then Aunt Sarah can close the shutters and lock up."

The survey was nearly completed. Miss Hardy had gone through to one of the back staircases, with which the old house was very well provided, when Rhoda, who had lingered a moment in the painting-room, heard a heavy fall. Both Sarah and herself rushed to the spot, to find Miss Hardy lying at the bottom of the stairs, with one leg doubled under her, pale as death, and unable to rise, but, as usual, quite collected and composed.

"I believe I have broken my leg," said she. "I can't move in the least. I slipped on something that lay on the top stair and fell all the way down. Run and bring Doctor Elsmore, Rhoda; and, Sarah, call James to help you and get me on the drawing-room sofa. That is the nearest place."

When Rhoda came back with the doctor, she found Miss Hardy on the sofa, and Sarah standing over her loosening her dress.

"It's all that Hester," said she, indignantly, "just going and leaving a piece of soap on the stairs, of all places in the world."

"She ought to be whipped, or any one else who leaves things on stairs," said the doctor. "One of the loveliest wives and mothers I ever knew was killed by just such a piece of careless stupidity. It was well this was no worse."

The leg was set and Miss Hardy made as comfortable as circumstances admitted, and then arose the question of what was to be done. Aunt Sarah would stay and do the work, but who was to wait on Miss Hardy?

"I shall, of course," said Rhoda, quietly—"that is, if Mrs. Elsmore will release me. I dare say she can find somebody to fill my place easily enough."

"More easily than Miss Hardy can, I dare say. Mrs. Elsmore is a reasonable woman, and won't stand in the way," said the doctor. "But, my girl, you are young. Do you think you are competent to nurse a woman with a broken leg?"

"I think so, doctor, with Aunt Sarah's help," answered Rhoda, modestly. "I have had a good deal of experience at nursing, and under a professional nurse. I took most of the care of Miss Brown when she had her broken leg; and when I don't know what to do, I can always ask, you know."

"Can you? Well, perhaps you can. I have known people that couldn't. Miss Hardy, I don't think you can do better than to accept this young woman's offer."

"But it will be such a great disappointment to you, Rhoda," said Miss Hardy. "I know you wished to go to Cape May, and I am afraid it won't be very pleasant for you in this great, shut up house with no company."

"Aunt Hannah used to say 'It isn't pleasant' was no reason at all," said Rhoda. "I think I ought to stay, Miss Hardy."

"Aunt Hannah is a sensible woman, as I should expect an Aunt Hannah to be," said the doctor. "But there must be no talking, or we shall have our patient in a fever. I think we had better consider the matter settled, Miss Hardy."