Page 513 - The model orator, or, Young folks' speaker : containing the choicest recitations and readings from the best authors for schools, public entertainments, social gatherings, Sunday schools, etc. : including recitals in prose and verse ...

Miss P.— I called to present myself as an applicant for the position
of assistant in your household during the summer.
Mrs. G. (her astonishment overcoming her good-breedingj.— You!
Oh! Indeed! I beg your pardon. You do not look as if you were
accustomed to the kind of work I desire, 1 want a girl for housework
— cooking in fact.
Miss P.-— I understand that perfectly, Madame. I am working- my
way through a university course and am accustomed to labor during
my vacations* I shall be all that you desire, Mrs. Gaskell, and
probably more than you thought of expecting, for I can supply you
with much that will be to your advantage, beside base labor.
Mrs. G.— But are you a skilled cook?
Miss P. (waving her hand loftily).— Permit me to question you, Mrs.
Gaskell. Are you conversant with French and German so that you
and I can revel together in the choicest minds of those literatures?
Are you a sympathetic student of Browning? Do you grasp his
philosophy ? A ll! then, his poetry has no obscurity for you. Do you
luxuriate in Keats and Ibsen and Dobson P Do you dote on Emerson
and Herbert Spencer ? Do you glory in Carlyle and do you spend
blissful, inspiring hours with the grand old masters of our own tongue
and of Greece and'------
Mrs. G. (with both hands raised in protest and amazement, impatience
and laughter all struggling for mastery, gas/s out) :— M y dear Miss---- -
Miss P.— Elizabeth Priscilla Hutchinson Adams Perkins, recently
of Radclitfe College, School of Technology and Boston School
Emerson Philosophy.
Mrs. G. (much overcome).— My dear Miss Philosophy— -—
Miss P. (severely),— Perkins.
Mrs. G .-—1 beg your pardon. M y dear Miss Perkins, there is some
mistake. I am seeking a good cook, not a governess— or I beg
pardon— a college professor, I should say, perhaps.
Miss P.—-You are seeking some one to prepare your material food
Here is an opportunity7— a rare opportunity I assure you— to secure a
helper who can feed your soul— a h ! yes, your soul. O, Mrs,