Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

“ Frances told him. “I do all sorts of things that aren’t really part of my duties.”
“What, for instance? Can’t you give me some sort of idea?” he persisted, and, half-laughing, she tried to tell him.
“Oh, I go shopping with her,” she said, “and I listen while she reads, and I get up little chafing-dish suppers, and answer the telephone, and check up her bank book, and talk to her publishers, and—oh, well—lots of things like that!”
“I shouldn’t call that a secretary,” said the young man. “At home we’d call you a sort of companion.”
Frances turned red, and began typing again. ”

“ I’ve never done anything much. Just stopped at home while my mother was alive.... Until two years ago ... when she died. She—liked to have me at home. We got on together very well.”
He was rather pathetically anxious to be friendly and communicative now, to show her that he wasn’t aloof and condescending. He tried to tell her about himself, indirectly to present his credentials. And did so, far more fully than he imagined. With every word, spoken and unspoken, she was more certain that she had not been mistaken—that he was “nice,” that he was to be trusted, that he was mysteriously likable. ”

“ It was, as she later wrote to Minnie, a “real grown-up human being,” a tall, thin fellow with a haughty, stupid face, a man who couldn’t be under thirty and who was dressed in well-fitting and expensive clothes. ”

“ II Frances found it a curious experience. She wrote home to Minnie, after the first week:
“I’m a sort of grandmother here in the business school. All the rest are little girls with pigtails and hair ribbons, and little boys in short trousers. You can imagine how I feel, so old and sedate. And even in size! They’re all so stunted. I tower above my tiny desk. I’m taller even than any of the teachers, and quite a different colour, at least five degrees redder.
“I thought I knew something about typing, but I’ve had to start all over again, and learn the ‘touch system.’ And shorthand! ”

“ The others learn like eager little trained animals. They can’t speak decently, or spell, of course, but what does that matter? They can put down on paper what they hear someone say, and copy it off, without the trouble of understanding. ”