The idea of this school originated with Miss Pillbody; and, like many other valuable ideas, it was hit upon quite accidentally.
Dorcas Pillbody was the only daughter of a man who had amassed a fortune in the oyster business, and had finally retired to a four-story house in Sixteenth street, near the Sixth Avenue, where he purposed to spend the balance of his days in the dignified enjoyment of his hard-earned money. To this secluded oyster dealer, as solitary and happy in the midst of his new grandeur as a bivalve in its native bed, came a plausible stockbroker, who, after a series of interviews, persuaded Mr. Pillbody to make a small investment in the "Sky Blue Ridge Pure Vein Copper Mining Company."
The small investment unfortunately turned out well. In less than sixty days, the shares that he had bought at ten per cent, sold at seventy-five, and ultimately advanced to par. Delighted with this unexpected result, Mr. Pillbody determined to stake largely (he had been a wholesale oyster dealer, and was a man of comprehensive ideas). Again his venture prospered. Mr. Pillbody, intoxicated with success, invested his entire means in the purchase of two new mines in a Southern State, whose unparalleled richness was certified to by mineralogists of great reputation.
Just as Mr. Pillbody was making arrangements to bring these mines before the public, his stockbroking friend, through whom he had effected the purchase, left for Europe, and it was then discovered that Mr. Pillbody's mines, if they existed at all, were ten feet under a swamp, on property which belonged to somebody else, the title deeds of which had been forged by the adroit operator. Mr. Pillbody could not endure his misfortune. He wrote notes bidding farewell to his wife and child, and commending them to the care of their relatives, to whom he had always been bountifully generous. Then he went to Staten Island by ferry, there took a row boat, proceeded to a celebrated oyster bed which was the scene of his youthful labors, and drowned himself.
The widow and daughter (the latter twenty years of age, healthy, and finely educated) applied to the two brothers of the deceased for assistance, and were at once kindly received into their families, and sat upon sofas and ate from tables purchased with money (never repaid) of the late Mr. Pillbody. The two brothers, upon application to the proper tribunal, were appointed executors of the estate, and were not long in discovering that it was insolvent. Mother and daughter were shifted about with almost monthly regularity from one house to the other; and, though they tried to make themselves useful in every capacity except that of a servant, they could not disguise the conviction that their departure was an event a great deal more welcome than their coming. The widow's talent for dressmaking (she had been a milliner's apprentice before marriage), though of a high order, and exerted to the utmost, failed to please. Miss Pillbody's thorough knowledge of French, and the higher branches of an elegant education, as well as her proficiency on the piano, and her sweet, simple style of ballad singing, were worse than useless acquirements in her uncles' families.
Her uncles were cold, stern, ignorant men, who had an intense hatred for the mere accomplishments of life. Each had two daughters, who, with the natural tastes of the sex, were not averse to the graces of education, in the abstract, but could not bear to see them displayed by their "stuck-up, pauper cousin," as they often termed that hapless young lady in private conversation. A kind offer, which she was imprudent enough, to make, to teach them all she knew, had set them against her from the first.
The widow endured the cold looks and cutting words of her husband's relatives, and even the reproaches which they heaped upon his folly, with a widow's patience, and seemed content to remain a poor, broken-down, dependent creature. Miss Pillbody, on the contrary, was quick to discern and to resent, mentally, the uncivil treatment daily experienced by her mother and herself. Had she been alone in the world, she would have left those inhospitable roofs when the unkind hints first began to be dropped, and trusted to the cold charity of strangers; but she could not bear the thought of being separated from her mother. So she endured her wretched state of dependence as best she could, while she quietly sought for some means of employment that would yield them a living.
Profiting by the lessons she had learned from her uncles, she did not apply to any person who had known her father and received favors from him in their better days. She asked no favor from any one--only work, at a fair price. By diligent hunting, she found several opportunities. She could earn four dollars a week by embroidering (at which she was skilful, and had taken premiums); or two dollars and a half for teaching French, twice a week, in a country seminary; or her board and washing for inducting a family of four little musical prodigies into all the mysteries of the piano. But these tempting offers would still have left her mother with her uncles, and she spurned them all.
CHAPTER V.
A FRIEND IN NEED.
One day, as Miss Pillbody was riding up Broadway, in tending to visit a Teachers' Agency for the sixteenth time, she accidentally made the acquaintance of a middle-aged lady, who talked a great deal upon the slightest provocation, trifled sadly with grammar and pronunciation, and was excessively friendly and amiable. The diamonds in her ears and on her fingers, and her overdone and gaudy style of dressing, were some indication, though not a convincing one, that she was a woman of wealth; and Miss Pillbody made bold to ask her if she knew anybody who wanted a private teacher in her family.
The lady said she did not, "unless," she added, laughing very loud at the humor of the suggestion, "you come into my family, and learn me something."
The remark was unpremeditated, but, the moment it was made, the lady seemed to be greatly struck with its force, and immediately followed it up with the question, "Do you s'pose you could learn grammar and pronunciation, and how to talk French, to a grown-up woman like me?" Miss Pillbody thought the lady with the diamonds was joking, and laughed by way of reply. "But I am ra-ally in earnest," continued the lady, thoughtfully, turning three heavy cluster rings on her little left finger. "Ye see, my early eddication was rather poor, 'cos I was poor then; but my old man made a spec' in tobacco, last year, and now I'm pooty well off, and live in good s'ciety. I kinder feel the want of grammar, French, and a few o' them things. I like your face and your manners, and if you can learn me 'em, I'll give you ten dollars a week to come to my house one hour every day, and be my private schoolmistress. It'll be rather hard, I s'pose, to learn an old dog new tricks; but there is no harm a-tryin'."
Notwithstanding the oddity of the proposition, Miss Pillbody saw by the lady's face that she meant what she said. "I think I understand English grammar, and French, and the other branches usually taught at academies," she replied, "and should be very happy to accept your offer."
"Then consider the bargain closed," returned the lady. "Here is my 'dress" (handing her a card), "and you may come to-morrer mornin', at ten o'clock, if that'll suit you. I have no children, and the old man will be out at that time, and we shall be as snug as two bugs in a rug, ye see."
Miss Pillbody was delighted with the sudden prospect of an honest living thus opened to her, and she only feared that she would not be able to do enough for her money. So, after she had again thanked the lady for her kindness, she said:
"I think I could give you lessons on the piano, madam--unless you understand that instrument better than I do."
"Lor'