Free Karen Harbaugh by The Marriage Scheme Page A

carry them out.
    Lucas shook his head. “If I ever saw two chits less suited toward your ‘ambitions,’ I don’t remember ‘em! Why, I haven’t seen you lift a pen, Sam, since Miss Jamieson left to visit her mother! As for writing letters, who was it that was two weeks late writing thank-you notes after Christmas, may I ask?”
    Samantha retorted, “Well, I did finally write them, and they were good ones, too! Better than yours, at any rate! And longer! Besides, an Author must be Inspired! One just does not write any insipid thing down on paper. As for writing since Miss Jamieson left, why, you don’t think I would show my writing to just anyone, do you?” She sniffed haughtily and sat back against the cushions on her seat, arms tucked in her muffler.
    It seemed to me that she was in the right of it, but I turned to Lord Ashcombe and asked: “And what is it about me that isn’t suited toward teaching and scholarship?”
    He pondered this a moment. “Don’t doubt that you’re intelligent enough, you know your geography and books and all that. Thing is, you’re too pretty.”
    I gasped and blushed. “Well, of all the whiskers! You’re quite wrong about that, I know! I have grown up with Mama, you might remember, and I know what pretty is! Now, tell me the true reason you think I would not be suited to being a governess. No flimflamming about, if you please!”
    “Not flimflamming at all! Not saying you’re as beautiful as your mama—different coloring, for one thing—but you have a look of her, enough to make a man sit up and take notice. Not trying to put you to the blush,” he said, looking at my flushed face. “Ask Samantha! Got a ‘Writer’s eye.’ She would know,” he ended with some irony.
    I turned to Samantha questioningly. She nodded. “Oh, yes, Georgia, Lucas is right! I don’t know what your mama looks like, but you are prettier than most young ladies I have seen, and I have seen many, both at home and out the window, for you must know my window looks out on the square and I can see ever so many people! It is very useful for me as a writer; I note down in my journal everything about the people I see just in case I might use it sometime in a story.”
    I felt suddenly shy, for I had never seriously considered myself pretty; Mama was always the standard I went by, and I had not thought that one could not look like her but be thought handsome on one’s own. “Th-thank you!” I murmured, eyes downcast. “I feel you must be mistaken, but it is very kind in you to compliment me so.” My mind turned inexorably, however, back to Lucas’s comment about being too pretty for teaching. “Even so,” I said briskly, raising a firm eye to his, “what do one’s looks have to do with teaching? If one is learned and a competent teacher, that should be qualification enough, I should think!”
    “Qualifications!” snorted Lucas. “That’s all well and good, but pretty governesses ain’t hired. Think about it. What did your governesses or schoolmistresses look like?”
    I did think about it and was silent, for though there were many schoolmistresses I liked, none of them could be said to be above passably good-looking.
    “You see? Passable, some of ‘em, but others are out-and-out antidotes!”
    Samantha looked, puzzled, at her brother. “But why is that so? Georgia is right; the way one looks shouldn’t have bearing on whether one is hired or not—it should be because one is a competent teacher. In fact, you didn’t really answer her question, you know! You just said pretty governesses simply aren’t hired. That is not an answer!”
    Lucas shifted uncomfortably on his seat, caught sight of a familiar face, and hailed the passerby. It was a while before all the introductions were done and his acquaintance was on his way, but Samantha was persistent. “Now that you’ve tried to make me forget the subject, but failed, do let us get back to it.” She somehow managed to insert a hint of