"My dear, it would be beautiful for me, but perfectly horrid for you! I quite agree with your cousin for once. It will never do in the world for you to attempt such a thing. People would drop you at once; you would lose your position and all your chance, if it was known that you were doing that kind of work."
"But don't you see," cried Georgie, kneeling down on the hearth-rug to bring her face nearer to her friend's,--"don't you see that I've _got_ to be dropped any way? Not because I have done anything, not because people are unkind, but just from the necessity of things. I have no money to buy dresses to go out and enjoy myself with. I have no money to stay at home on, in fact,--I _must_ do something. And to live like Cousin Vi on the edge of things, just tolerated by people, and mortified and snubbed, and then have a little crumb of pleasure tossed to me, as one throws the last scrap of cake that one doesn't want to a cat or a dog,--_that_ is what I could not possibly bear.
"I like fun and pretty things and luxury as well as other people," she continued, after a little pause. "It isn't that I shouldn't _prefer_ something different. But everybody can't be well off and have things their own way; and since I am one of the rank and file, it seems to me much wiser to give up the things I _can't_ have, out and out, and not try to be two persons at once, a young lady and a working-girl, but put my whole heart into the thing I must be, and do it just as well as I can. Don't you see that I am right?"
"You poor dear darling!" said Mrs. St. John, with tears in her eyes. Then her face cleared.
"Very well," she said briskly, "you _shall_. It will be the greatest comfort in the world to have you take charge of the ornaments. _Now_ I can buy as many cups and saucers as I like, and with an easy mind. You must stay and lunch, always, Georgie. I'll give you a regular salary, and when the weather's bad I shall keep you to dinner too, and to spend the night. That's settled; and now let us decide what I shall give you. Would fifty dollars a month be enough?"
"My dear Mrs. St. John! Fifty! Two dollars a week was what I was thinking of."
"Two dollars! oh, you foolish child! You never could live on that! You don't know anything at all about expenses, Georgie."