suppose that what Garcia and the lawyers tell us is true. I suppose I am
not worth a thousand dollars."

"Will a thousand dollars support you here?"

"I don't know. I don't think it will."

"Then if I can't set this thing straight, if I can't make somebody
disgorge your property, I must take you back with me."

"Oh! if you would!" implored Clara, all the tender helplessness of Spanish
girlhood appealing from her eyes.

"Of course I will," said Aunt Maria, with a benevolent energy which was
almost terrific.

"I would try to do something. I don't know. Couldn't I teach Spanish?"

"You _shan't_" decided Aunt Maria. "Yes, you _shall_. You shall be
professor of foreign languages in a Female College which I mean to have
founded."

Clara stared with astonishment, and then burst into a hearty fit of
laughter, the two finishing the drying of her tears. She was so far from
wishing to be a strong-minded person of either gender, that she did not
comprehend that her aunt could wish it for her, or could herself seriously
claim to be one. The talk about a professorship was in her estimation the
wayward, humorous whim of an eccentric who was fond of solemn joking. Mrs.
Stanley, meanwhile, could not see why her utterance should not be taken in
earnest, and opened her eyes at Clara's merriment.