"Ah, that's where the lion-tamer and the sleight-of-hand performer combination gets in his work. He must quell them with his eye, and draw ways and means out of his silk hat. Mrs. Mallory would like to have them taught to read and write if it can be done without crossing the little dears, but I inferred that their father would be glad simply to have them taken in hand and tamed sufficiently to keep them from being public nuisances." Mary's pulses began to pound with the excitement of a daring thought, but she managed to appear unconcerned, and asked him in a joking way, "And if you can't find this Job-like, diplomatic lion-tamer they want, they'll have to take some ordinary person?" "They'll be obliged to. But I'm afraid that a quest even in that direction will prove fruitless. It's a field for real missionary effort, though. Some one might be willing to approach it in that spirit." The delivery window flew up, and as the waiting line began moving along towards it, Mr. Rochester lifted his hat and turned away. But before he could fit his key in the lock of his box, Mary was at his side. "One moment, please," she exclaimed, her face flushing. She spoke very fast. "If you think that _I_ can fill that position will you tell them about me? I've really got lots of patience with children, and"--laughing nervously--"last summer I partly tamed a young wild-cat. I could at least tell the children stories, and teach them all sorts of wood-lore that would keep them busy and interested out of doors. Besides," she flushed still deeper, "I _must_ find some way to earn some money soon. My very need of it would make me try all the harder to fill the place. I am on my way now to see Mrs. Rochester and ask her advice about what to do." A few minutes later she and Mr. Rochester were walking rapidly along the road in the direction of the Williams House. As they crossed the wide foot-bridge which spans the creek, and climbed the hill on the other side, she told him of the work she had done the previous summer under the noted naturalist, Professor Carnes. "He had arranged to send his fifteen-year-old niece to Lone Rock this winter," she added, "but her physicians decided at the last moment that she needed a milder climate. She was to have boarded near us, and I had promised to devote my mornings to keeping her out of doors and teaching her in an indirect way that would not suggest books or study hours. Maybe the fact that such a man as Professor Carnes thought me competent to do that, and was willing to pay me a grown teacher's salary, might have some weight with the Mallorys. Oh, I _hope_ they won't think seventeen and a half is too young," she exclaimed, with an anxious glance at her companion, as if to discover his opinion. "If I'd only known such an important interview was ahead of me I'd have worn my blue suit. I look lots older in that because it's longer than this one."