There were few secrets between Wishing-Brae and the Manse, and Mrs. Wainwright had told our mother how opportunely Grace had been able to assist her father in his straits.  Great was our joy.

“You must remember, dear,” said mamma, when she returned from seeing Miss Gardner off, “that your purse is not exhaustless, though it is a long one for a girl.  Debts have a way of eating up bank accounts; and what will you do when your money is gone if you still find that the wolf menaces the door at Wishing-Brae?”

“That is what I want to consult you about, Aunt Dorothy.” (I ought to have said that our mother was Aunt Dorothy to the children at the Brae, and more beloved than many a real auntie, though one only by courtesy.) “Frances knows my ambitions,” Grace went on.  “I mean to be a money-maker as well as a money-spender; and I have two strings to my bow.  First, I’d like to give interpretations.”

The mother looked puzzled.  “Interpretations?” she said.  “Of what, pray?—­Sanscrit or Egyptian or Greek?  Are you a seeress or a witch, dear child?”

“Neither.  In plain English I want to read stories and poems to my friends and to audiences—­Miss Wilkins’ and Mrs. Stuart’s beautiful stories, and the poems of Holmes and Longfellow and others who speak to the heart.  Not mere elocutionary reading, but simple reading, bringing out the author’s meaning and giving people pleasure.  I would charge an admission fee, and our dining-room would hold a good many; but I ought to have read somewhere else first, and to have a little background of city fame before I ask Highland neighbors to come and hear me.  This is my initial plan.  I could branch out.”

To the mother the new idea did not at once commend itself.  She knew better than we girls did how many twenty-five-cent tickets must be sold to make a good round sum in dollars.  She knew the thrifty people of Highland looked long at a quarter before they parted with it for mere amusement, and still further, she doubted whether Dr. Wainwright would like the thing.  But Amy clapped her hands gleefully.  She thought it fine.

“You must give a studio reading,” she said.  “I can manage that, mother; if Miss Antoinette Drury will lend her studio, and we send out invitations for ‘Music and Reading, and Tea at Five,’ the prestige part will be taken care of.  The only difficulty that I can see is that Grace would have to go to a lot of places and travel about uncomfortably; and then she’d need a manager.  Wouldn’t she, Frances?”

“I see no trouble,” said I, “in her being her own manager.  She would go to a new town with a letter to the pastor of the leading church, or his wife, call in at the newspaper office and get a puff; puffs are always easily secured by enterprising young women, and they help to fill up the paper besides.  Then she would hire a hall and pay for it out of her profits, and the business could be easily carried forward.”