"I say it too. You see a good deal, Jane. Try to see what will please people
instead of what you can find out about them. It's a much better plan. Now,
as a friend, I tell you of one thing you had better not do. You shouldn't
watch and listen to Mr. Holcroft unless he speaks to you. He doesn't like to
be watched--no one does. It isn't nice; and if you come to us, I think you
will try to do what is nice. Am I not right?"

"I dunno how," said Jane.

"It will be part of my business to teach you. You ought to understand all
about your coming. Mr. Holcroft doesn't take you because he needs your work,
but because he's sorry for you, and wishes to give you a chance to do better
and learn something. You must make up your mind to lessons, and learning to
talk and act nicely, as well as to do such work as is given you. Are you
willing to do what I say and mind me pleasantly and promptly?"

Jane looked askance at the speaker and was vaguely suspicious of some trick.
In her previous sojourn at the farmhouse she had concluded that it was her
best policy to keep in Holcroft's good graces, even though she had to defy her
mother and Mrs. Wiggins, and she was now by no means ready to commit herself
to this new domestic power. She had received the impression that the
authority and continued residence of females in this household was involved in
much uncertainty, and although Alida was in favor now and the farmer's wife,
she didn't know what "vicissitudes" (as her mother would denominate them)
might occur. Holcroft was the only fixed and certain quantity in her troubled
thoughts, and after a little hesitation she replied, "I'll do what he says;
I'm goin' to mind him."

"Suppose he tells you to mind me?"