“You are an obdurate man, sir. My father used to liken your countrymen to our own Puritans. Therein, he said, lay the greatness of the nation. I must confess Papa and I never saw eye to eye on your ‘greatness’ for even as a young lady, I was displeased with your romancing and your ‘earth-spirit’ but I can see that some of you are hard-headed. If you were not, how could you work so cleverly?” She paused, watching my father closely as though she were waiting for a reply or a confirmation, but neither was forthcoming. She went on. “If you came to Boston, you would be out of the doldrums. I recollect the governess to the child of one of my friends. When she came, poor Fräulein Ströck, she was timorous and wistful, for she had been for some time in an establishment in the middle west where her gifts—a little too Prussian for my liking—were not appreciated in the least. But she had not been with us, with Boston, that is, for a month before she had blossomed into what she had been born to be, a first-rate disciplinarian. I believe you will find we have our feet on the ground and that we need no divining rods to find our treasures.”

My father, no more than I, did not know what to make of her lecture. Had I been inside with them, I would have inquired how many children were under Miss Ströck’s charge or why it was that she was too Prussian to please Miss Pride entirely. My disappointment in my father’s indifference and in the gesture he made of passing his hand before his face as if he were befogged, was converted into anger as I realized that he did not intend to make any sort of comment at all. Surely he, a grown-up man with an education so proudly advertised by Mr. Brock, could select something out of that subtle speech as a point of departure! How stupid and contrary of him not to ask, at least, if Miss Pride had ever been to Germany. Why, I, a little girl, could do that much!

But Miss Pride, to my astonishment, did not appear annoyed. With a grace which obviated the need for a transition, she said, “If I am pleased with my shoes, I shall want you to make more for me. I shall be anxious to put you in the way of further commissions. Surely you won’t refuse.”

“No,” he said, but there was neither gratitude nor excitement in his voice. “If I am nothing else, I am a workman who does his work.”