On emerging, he shouted and whipped up his oxen, and off we lumbered.
When we came to a hill, and our pace was sufficiently slackened for
speech, Mrs. Gilbert called to him, "Jan, where is my change?"
"Oh, Meeses!" exclaimed Jan, quite unabashed; "I took the change in
tobacco!"
[Sidenote: Many girls long for an opportunity to "do something." That
was Claudia's way. And, after all, there _was_ an opportunity. Where?]
Claudia's Place
BY
A. R. BUCKLAND
"What I feel," said Claudia Haberton, sitting up with a movement of
indignation, "is the miserable lack of purpose in one's life."
"Nothing to do?" said Mary Windsor.
"To do! Yes, of a kind; common, insignificant work about which it is
impossible to feel any enthusiasm."
"'The trivial round'?"
"Trivial enough. A thousand could do it as well or better than I can. I
want more--to feel that I am in my place, and doing the very thing for
which I am fitted."
"Sure your liver is all right?"
"There you go; just like the others. One can't express a wish to be of
more use in the world without people muttering about discontent, and
telling you you are out of sorts."
"Well, I had better go before I say worse." And Mary went.
Perhaps it was as well; for Claudia's aspirations were so often
expressed in terms like these that she began to bore her friends. One,
in a moment of exasperation, had advised her to go out as a nursery
governess.
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