"
"Aun' Sheba, suppose we go into partnership."
"Pahnaship!" ejaculated Aun' Sheba in bewilderment.
"Oh, Mara!" Mrs. Hunter expostulated indignantly.
"Well, I suppose it would be a very one-sided affair," admitted the girl,
blushing in a sort of honest shame. "You are doing well without any help
from me, and don't need any. I'm very much like a man who wants to share
in a good business which has already been built up, but I don't know how
to do anything else, and could at least learn better every day,
and--and--I thought--I must do something--I thought, perhaps, if I made
the cakes and some other things, and you sold them, Aun' Sheba, you
wouldn't have to work so hard, and--well, there might be enough profit for
us both."
"Now de Lawd bress you heart, honey, dar ain't no need ob you blisterin'
you'se pretty face ober a fiah, bakin' cakes an' sich. I kin--"
"No, no, Aun' Sheba, you can't, for I won't let you."
"Mara," protested Mrs. Hunter, severely, "do you realize what you are
saying? Suppose it became known that you were in--in--" but the lady could
not bring herself to complete the humiliating sentence.
"Yis, honey, Missus am right. De idee! Sech quality as you in pahnaship
wid ole Aun' Sheba!" and she laughed at the preposterous relationship.
"Perhaps it needn't be known," said Mara, daunted for a moment. Then the
necessities in the case drove her forward, and, remembering that her aunt
was unable to suggest or even contemplate anything practicable, she said
resolutely, "Let it be known.
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