"And of course your writing could not be trusted to a printer. Now what you should do is this: employ that Drane girl to copy your manuscript. She can do it here, and if she comes to a word she cannot make out, she can ask you. That will keep her going until autumn, and by that time we can get her some scholars." "Miss Panney," said the doctor, "are you going crazy? I cannot afford charity on that scale." "Charity!" repeated the old lady, sarcastically. "A pretty word to use. By that sort of charity you give yourself one of the greatest of earthly blessings, in the shape of La Fleur, and you get out a book which will certainly be a benefit to the world, and will, I believe, bring you fame and profit. And you are frightened by the paltry sum that will be necessary to pay the board of the girl and her mother for perhaps two months. Now do not condemn this plan until you have had time to consider it. Go back to your Clopsey; I am going to find Mrs. Tolbridge and talk to her." CHAPTER XX THE TEABERRY GOWN IS TOO LARGE When Dora Bannister had gone away in Miss Panney's phaeton, Miriam walked gravely into the house, followed by her brother. "Now," said she, "I must go to work in earnest." "Work!" exclaimed Ralph. "I think you have been working a good deal harder than you ought to work, and certainly a good deal harder than I intend you to work. As soon as he has had his dinner, Mike shall take the wagon, and go after the woman Miss Panney told us of." "Of course I have been working," said Miriam, "but while Dora Bannister was here, what we did was not like straightforward work; it all seemed to mean something that was not just plain housekeeping. For one thing, the dough I intended to bake into bread was nearly all used up in making those rolls that Dora worked up into such pretty shapes; and now, if the new woman comes, I shall not have another chance to try my hand at making bread until she leaves us, for I am not going to do anything of the sort with a servant watching me. And there are all those raspberries we picked this morning. I am sure I do not know what to do with them, for there are ever so many more than we shall want to eat with cream. What was it, Ralph, that you said you liked, made of raspberries?" Ralph looked a little puzzled. "I think," he said, "it must have been something of the tart order. What did I tell you?" "You did not tell me anything," said Miriam, "and I do not believe that tarts are ever made of raspberries. Dora Bannister said she wanted to cook something for you that you told her you liked, but as you have forgotten what it was, I suppose it does not make much difference now." Ralph had said so many things to Dora that he could not remember what remark he had made about cooked raspberries; but it delighted him to think that, whatever it was, Dora had wished to make it for him.