“I don’t see how you can possibly expect me to use my influence to get you a school when you act like that,” said the angry woman as a last resort. “I shall tell my husband how unaccommodating and impertinent you have been. You are not a fit person to set over young people. And if you refuse my request I shall take pains to see that you get no position in our schools. As for all this nonsense about working on Sunday, don’t you know, my poor girl, that all that belongs to a bygone day? The Sabbath was made for man, and not to be long-faced in. I am in a far better position than you to know what is right and what is wrong, and I tell you that it is perfectly all right for you to help a person out when they have company, and at the same time help yourself out, and I’ve offered you very liberal wages. I’m perfectly willing also to see that you get a place to teach if you prove to be at all fitted for it, provided you go out of your way to help me.” Joyce looked at the woman steadily. “Mrs. Powers, I would rather never have a position to teach than purchase it at the price of doing something I think is wrong. Besides, I couldn’t help hearing what you said about me at the dinner table, and I’ve no expectation of your using your influence to help me in any way. In fact, I think I’d rather you wouldn’t. Good night, Mrs. Powers.” She was actually gone, out the back door, through the moonlit garden, out the little back gate, and down the street, before Mrs. Powers recovered and realized that she had lost her. “She won’t come,” she announced, going back to the living room, where her guests and her husband were awaiting her return to the game of cards in which they had been engaged, “and she actually had the nerve to try to preach a sermon to me about having dinner parties on Sunday. Did you ever? Aren’t help the limit these days? I suppose it made her mad for me to ask her to scrub the bath room floor. She’s quite inclined to be above her station. But isn’t it ridiculous? Now I’ll have to get Martha Allen to cook the dinner and she can’t begin to make mayonnaise like this girl.” “I thought you told me she wasn’t help,” said her husband. “You said she was a school-teacher.” “Oh, well--” said the wife indolently, “you know what a school-teacher is that has to go out to work to make a living. Just as soon as I knew she would come I set her down where she belonged, and made up my mind if she was any good I’d get her permanently.” “Well, that’s a laudable ambition. Coax a girl to come and help you as a favor, and then try to keep her down to the station you’ve put her in! I must say I admire a girl who is willing to cook when she hasn’t anything else to do, and especially when she knows how to cook like that. I believe I’ll look into her case. If she applies for a job in the school I’ll vote for her. I like a girl with ambition and without notions, and I’ll bet she earned her money today.”