"It seems absurd to inquire into the qualifications of a Miss Wyndham to teach children as young as mine are--but do you understand kindergarten methods?" Mrs. Haines asked affably.
"I am sorry, but I do not," said Phyllis.
"No; you would hardly have studied them, not having foreseen the necessity of teaching. The books can give you suggestions, and you can easily pick up those charming song-games. You sing?"
"A little; enough for that," said Phyllis.
"As well as English," said Phyllis, glad to answer one inquiry affirmatively.
"Oh, then I should be glad if you would speak it with the children," exclaimed Mrs. Haines. "Fancy having a daughter of Mr. Henry Wyndham for one's nursery governess! What a land of reverses America is! Frankly, I made up my mind to take you the moment you came."
The vulgarity of this remark struck Phyllis dumb for a moment. Never in her life had she felt that the money standard existed. In her home she had been surrounded by luxury, but never before had she imagined that any one could estimate a person by what he had, or desire to know those who had wealth, merely for that reason. In a flash, the vision of a world of shams, snobbishness, insincerity, spread before her, calling forth the fierce revolt, the sickening repulsion, proper and natural to her youth and better teaching.
"I am not Mr. Henry Wyndham's daughter," she said; "I am his brother's daughter, but I have lived with my uncle since I was almost a baby, and neither of my cousins feels any difference between me and her own sister."
"Oh, but there _is_ a difference; your uncle and aunt must have felt it, if the children did not, or if they were too kind to let you see it. They were very nice to look after you. Are you the only one who is going to work, now that the money is gone? Why did not one of the others come?" asked Mrs. Haines, with evident disappointment, wrinkling her pretty, if rather common, face fretfully.
"Miss Wyndham and Miss Barbara Wyndham have other plans," said Phyllis, haughtily. Then, realizing that she was actually the applicant for a position, and that this tone would never do, she added, with the intention of influencing the shallow creature before her, though she despised herself for appealing to such motives: "I doubt very much if the world knows which is niece and which are daughters. We have always been to every one merely 'the Wyndham girls,' with no distinction to outsiders any more than among ourselves."