“Ah, but no! I fit the applicant to the position, not the position to the applicant. So long you have been lacking the employment. So quite joyful should you be for anything. The call for companions is rare, very. One, two, three applicants have I booked before that you come. This position I so kindly extend----” “I tell you, nothing doing!” the interruption came in emphatic, current American. “I was a governess two days once. I tell you I’d rather try the streets. Children ain’t human beings. They’re devils, say I.” “The devil? Ah, but no, _no_! More unto an angel is this exquisite child. Could you once see those curls of gold, those turquoise eyes! The parents are from money made and them I have promised a governess to-day.” “Well, you redeem your promise at the expense of somebody else. I’ll be back to-morrow for my job. Good day to you, _Madame_ Shinn!” If the sneer of this would-be companion, thought Dolores, was a sample of her companionableness, small wonder that she was out of a position. No hesitation held the girl in waiting. Ignorant of the rules of such offices, unmindful of the dour-visaged hope-lorn awaiting their turn on the benches of the outer room, she brushed past the departing aspirant into madame’s presence. “Won’t you let me have that position?” she asked in lieu of introduction. “I love children. I know I’d suit. I don’t care so much about the pay or----” “So too fast you go!” interrupted née Shinn. “You look but the infant yourself. And the qualifications----” “Of course you couldn’t be expected to know it yet, dear madame, but I am qualified. As for education--Listen, I shall speak in three languages!” Under impetus of the unwonted initiative ruling her, Dolores switched from English to French, then to Italian as she urged: “I am young, yes, but that is why I need a home. And what companionship would be safer for me than that of a child such as this golden-haired little girl you describe? Once madame was as young as I. Was she ever, perchance, alone in the world?” “Mademoiselle is marvelously a linguist,” admitted Mrs. Shinn, although confusion from more than the foreign words sat upon her broad features. “Have you also the excellent references?” Momentarily the girl’s new-found assurance stumbled. Then again was she inspired. “I have, indeed, a par-excellent one.” Her Spanish--a creditable attempt at a fourth language--may not have been comprehensible to the agency woman, but Donovan O’Shay’s scribble was. A good-natured smile waved in like a flag her native tongue. “A friend of Don’s are you, then, my _chérie_? Sure, if you’re as good as that boy’s heart, you’re O. K.!” Motherly instructions and penciled directions followed Dolores’ payment of the fee. If she’d just “speak up,” now, to Mrs. M. P. Morrison of No. ---- Fifth Avenue as she had to madame herself, she stood a chance of overcoming natural objections to her youth and inexperience.