"I dare say you may, if you are quick; though you must remember that your time is your employer's, and not slight your work. Mrs. Ferrand is a reasonable woman in the main, and won't expect too much of you. My Jane has half the time to herself—at least three days in the week; though I am afraid she spends very little time in studying. She likes to run in the street better than anything. Miss Carpenter tells me that you don't care very much about going out." "I haven't anywhere to go," said Rhoda, sighing a little. "When will Mrs. Ferrand want me?" "As soon as you can be ready. She usually keeps two girls, but has nobody at present." Rhoda was not sorry to hear this, for one of the things she had dreaded was the being obliged to associate with uncongenial people, and she secretly resolved that she would do all in her power to make another girl unnecessary. The prospect of being able to save money for her great object was another comfort. Nevertheless, it was not very strange that after Mrs. Mulford had gone, Rhoda should shut herself up in her room and have a good cry. But Rhoda, young as she was, had learned the way to the only spring of comfort and peace. She recurred to Aunt Hannah's verses written in the beginning of her precious Bible, and by degrees she was able to say honestly and from her heart,— "'Not my will, but thine, be done.'" There was a great outcry in the house when it was known that Rhoda was going away. Her quiet helpfulness and cheerfulness had greatly endeared her to the old ladies, and Miss Brown had come to depend very much upon her. Granny Parsons declared that "it wasn't no more than she expected. She always knew that Rhoda's pride would have a fall, with her music-lessons and her history-books, thinking herself a young lady, when she wasn't nothing but a charity child." Then turning round with a rapidity quite her own, she declared that it was "a shame and a sin to make the poor girl live out, just as if the ladies couldn't afford to support her when they was perfectly rolling in money. It was all of a piece—just some of Mrs. Lambert's doing, because she, Mrs. Lambert, knew that granny liked her best of any gal in the house. Just like her taking away my bottle of whisky with cherry bark into it—the only thing that is any comfort to me." "Because the doctor said it wasn't good for you," said Mrs. Josleyn. "He said 'twas that made your eyes sore." "Just as if he knew anything! I knew his father when he wasn't nothing but a hired man, living out with old Mr. Mellener. A likely story he knows what's good for folks!"