Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/199

 looked eager, but Mary William gave no sign—"twelve hundred and fifty dollars. Should you think that a fair compensation?"

Mary's eyes sparkled. Touched by the generosity of such an offer to a mere grammar-school teacher, she cried, impulsively, "I ought to bea better teacher than I am, to be worth all that to you."

Mrs. Beardsley was gratified, but she only said, "If you are not worth that, you are worth nothing to me."

Mrs. Beardsley had gone out in search of a "treasure," and she had found one. As for Mary William, she had set forth on an errand almost as humble as Saul's, and, like him, she suddenly found herself endowed—to her own thinking—with a kingdom.

All summer long Mary spent much of her time in fashioning tasteful garments, wherein to meet one, at least, of Mrs. Beardsley's requirements, and her needle went in and out as gayly as though set to music.

Her friends told her of proposed journeyings or weeks to be spent at the, but she envied none of them. What were a few weeks of pleasuring compared to the gift of liberty to live your own life in your own way? As she tried on one completed garment after another, examining the effect critically in the glass, she thought of Mrs. Beardsley and of that formidable band of school-girls, and she took heart of hope.