"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."