"Be careful of the chocolate, it's burning hot. I kept it simmering till I heard you shut the vestibule door. And—O, yes! No danger in sipping it that way! But you haven't asked a single thing about my job. How I came to know of it in the first place, and how I was clever enough to get it after I'd applied! You don't look a bit pleased and excited over it, you bad Martha! And you ought to be so glad, because I won't need to spend anything like all the money I'll get. I'm to have my home and laundry free, and one can't make many outside expenses in a boarding-school 'way off in Schoharie—and so I can send you a lot and a lot of dollars, till we're all squared up and smoothed out, and you won't have to work so hard any more, and—"

"Say now, Miss Claire, you certaintly are the fastest thing on record. If you'd been born a train, you'd been an express, shoor-pop an' no mistake. Didn't I tell you to hold on, pationate an' uncomplainin', till I giv' you the sign? Didn't I say I had my eye on a job for you that was a job worth talkin' about? One that'd be satisfactry all around. Well, then! An' here you are, tellin' me about you goin' to the old Harry, or some such, with home an' laundry thrown in. Not on your life you ain't, Miss Claire, an' that (beggin' your pardon!) is all there is to it!"

"But, Martha—"

"Don't let's waste no more words. The thing ain't to be thought of."

"But, Martha, it's over two weeks since you said that, about having an idea about a certain job for me that was going to be so splendid. Don't you know it is? And I thought it had fallen through. I didn't like to speak about it, for fear you'd think I was hurrying you, but two weeks are two weeks, and I can't go on indefinitely staying here, and getting so deep in debt I'll never be able to get out again. And I saw this advertisement in The Outlook. 'Twas for a college graduate to teach High School English in a girls' boarding-school, and I went to the agency, and they were very nice, and told me to write to the Principal, and I did—told her all about myself, my experience tutoring, and all that, and this morning came the letter saying she'd engage me. I can tell you all about Schoharie, Martha. It's 'up-state' and—"

"Miss Claire, child, no! It won't do. I can't consent. I can't have you throwin' away golden opportoonities to work like a toojan for them as'll stint you in the wash, an' prob'ly give you oleo-margerine instead of butter, an' cold-storage eggs that had forgot there was such a thing as a hen, long before they ever was laid away. I wasn't born yesterday, myself, an' I know how they treat the teachers in some o' them schools. The young-lady scholars, so stylish an' rich, as full of airs as a music-box, snubbin' the teacher because they're too ignorant to know how smart she has to be, to get any knowledge into their stupid heads, an' the Principal always eyein' you like a minx, 'less you might be wastin' her precious time an' not earnin' the elegant sal'ry she gives you, includin' your home an' laundry. O my! I know a thing or two about them schools, an' a few other places. No, Miss Claire, dear, it won't do. An' besides, I have you bespoke for Mrs. Sherman. The last thing before I come away from the house this night, she sent for me upstairs, an' ast me didn't I know some one could engage with her for Radcliffe—to learn him his lessons, an' how to be a little lady, an' suchlike. She wants, as you might say, a trained mother for'm, while his own untrained one is out gallivantin' the streets, shoppin', an' playin' bridge, an' attendin' the horse-show.

"I hemmed an' hawed an' scratched my head to see if, happen, I did know anybody suitable, an' after a while (not to seem to make you too cheap, or not to look like I was jumpin' down her throat) I told her: 'Curious enough, I do know just the one I think will please you—if you can get her.'

"Then she ast me a lot about you, an' I told her what I know, an' for the rest I trusted to Providence, an' in the end we made a sorter deal—so's it's all fixed you're to go there day after to-morrer, to talk to her, an' let her look you over. An' if you're the kind o' stuff she wants, she'll take a half-a-dozen yards o' you, which is the kind o' way those folks has with people they pay money to. I promised Mrs. Sherman you'd come, an' I couldn't break my word to her, now could I? I'd be like to lose my own job if I did, an' I'm sure you wouldn't ast that o' me!"

"But," said Claire, troubled, "you told me Radcliffe is so unmanageable."

Mrs. Slawson devoted herself to her chocolate and buns for a moment or two. "O, never you fear about Radcliffe," she announced at length. "He's a good little fella enough, as little fellas goes. When you know how to handle'm—which is right side up with care. Him an' me come to an understandin' yesterday mornin', an' he's as meek an' gentle as a baa-lamb ever since. I'll undertake you'll have no trouble with Radcliffe."

"Is this the wonderful plan you spoke of? Is this the job you said was going to be so satisfactory all 'round?" inquired Claire, her misgivings, in connection with her prospective pupil, by no means allayed.

"Well, not eggsackly. I can't say it is. That job will come later. But we got to be pationate, an' not spoil it by upsettin' our kettles o' fish with boardin'-schools, an' such nonsense. Meanwhile we can put in time with Mrs. Sherman, who'll pay you well, an' won't be too skittish if you just keep a firm hand on her. This mornin' she got discoursin' about everythin' under the canopy, from nickel-plated bathroom fixin's, an' marble slobs, to that state o' life unto which it has pleased God to call me. She told me just what I'd oughter give my fam'ly to eat, an' how much I'd oughter pay for it, an'—I say, but wasn't she grand to have give me all that good advice free?"

Claire laughed. "She certainly was, and now you've just got to go to bed. I don't dare look at the clock, it's so late. Good-night, you good Martha! And thank you, from way deep down, for all you've done for me."

But long after Mrs. Slawson had disappeared, the girl sat in the solitude of her shadowy room thinking—thinking—thinking. Unable to get away from her thoughts. There was something about this plan, to which Martha had committed her, that frightened, overawed her. She felt a strange impulse to resist it, to follow her own leading, and go to the school instead. She knew her feeling was childish. Suppose Radcliffe were to be unruly, why, how could she tell that the girls in the Schoharie school might not prove even more so? The fact was, she argued, she had unconsciously allowed herself to be prejudiced against Mrs. Sherman and the boy, by Martha's whimsical accounts of them, good-natured as they were. And this strange, premonitory instinct was no premonitory instinct at all, it was just the natural reluctance of a shy nature to face a new and uncongenial situation. And yet—and yet—and yet, try as she would, she could not shake off the impression that, beyond it all, there loomed something a hidden inner sense made her hesitate to approach.

Just that moment, a dim, untraceable association of ideas drew her back until she was face-to-face with a long-forgotten incident in her very-little girlhood. Once upon a time, there had been a moment when she had experienced much the same sort of feeling she had now—the feeling of wanting to cry out and run away. As a matter of fact, she had cried out and run away. Why, and from what? As it came back to her, not from anything altogether terrible. On the contrary, something rather alluring, but so unfamiliar that she had shrunk back from it, protesting, resisting. What was it? Claire suddenly broke into a smothered little laugh and covered her face with her hands, before the vision of herself, squawking madly, like a startled chicken, and running away from "big" handsome, twelve-year-old Bobby Van Brandt, who had just announced to the world at large, that "he liked Claire Lang a lot, 'n' she was his best girl, 'n' he was goin' to kiss her." She had been mortally frightened, had screamed, and run away, but (so unaccountable is the heart of woman) she had never liked Bobby quite so well after that, because he had shown the white feather and hadn't carried out his purpose, in spite of her.

But if she should scream and run away now, there would be none to pursue. Her foolish outburst would disturb no one. She could cry and cry, and run and run, and there would be no big Bobby Van Brandt, or any one else to hear and follow.

An actual echo of the cries she had not uttered seemed to mock her foolish musing. She paused and listened. Again and again came the muffled sounds, and, at last, so distinct they seemed, she went to her door, unlatched it, and stood, listening, on the threshold.

From Martha's room rose a deep rumble, as of a distant murmurous sea.

"Mr. Slawson. He's awake. He must have heard the crying, too. O, it's begun again! How awful! Martha, what is it, O, what is it?" for Mrs. Slawson had appeared in her own doorway, and was standing, night-robed and ghostly, listening attentively to the intermittent signs of distress.

"It's that bloomin' Dutchman, Langbein, acrost the hall. Every time he goes on a toot, he comes back an' wallops his wife for it. Go to bed, Miss Claire, child, an' don't let it worry you. It ain't your funeral."

Came the voice of big Sam Slawson from within his chamber:

"Just what I say to you, my dear. It ain't your funeral. Come back, Martha, an' go to bed."

"Well, that's another pair o' shoes, entirely, Sammy," whispered Martha. "This business has been goin' on long enough, an' I ain't proposin' to put up with it no longer. Such a state o' things has nothin' to recommend it. If it'd help such a poor ninny as Mrs. Langbein any to beat her, I'd say, 'Go ahead! Never mind us!' But you couldn't pound sense inter a softy like her, no matter what you done. In the first place, she lets that fella get away from her evenin's when, if she'd an ounce o' sense, she could keep him stickin' so close at home, a capcine plaster wouldn't be in it. Then, when he comes home, a little the worse for wear, she ups an' reproaches 'm, which, God knows, that ain't no time to argue with a man. You don't want to argue with a fella when he's so. You just want to tellm'. Tell'm with the help of a broomstick if you want to, but tell'm, or leave'm alone. An' it's bad for the childern—all this is—it's bad for Cora an' Francie. What idea'll they get o' the holy estate o' matrimony, I should like to know? That the man has the upper hand? That's a nice notion for a girl to grow up with, nowadays. Hark! My, but he's givin' it to her good an' plenty this time! Sammy Slawson, shame on ye, man! to let a poor woman be beat like that, an' never raise a hand to save your own childern from bein' old maids. Another scream outer her, an' I'll go in myself, in the face of you."

"Now, Martha, be sensible!" pleaded Sam Slawson. "You can't break into a man's house without his consent."

"Can't I? Well, just you watch me close, an' you'll see if I can't."

"You'll make yourself liable to the law. He's her husband, you know. She can complain to the courts, if she's got any kick comin'. But it's not my business to go interferin' between husband and wife. 'What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.'"

Martha wagged an energetic assent.

"Shoor! That certaintly lets you out. But there ain't no mention made o' woman not bein' on the job, is there?"

She covered the narrow width of the hall in a couple of strides, and beat her knuckles smartly against the panel of the opposite door.

By this time the baluster-railing, all the way up, was festooned with white-clad tenants, bending over, looking down.

"Martha," protested Sam Slawson, "you're in your nightgown! You can't go round like that! Everybody's lookin' at you!"

"Say, you—Mr. Langbein in there! Open the door. It's me! Mrs. Slawson! Let me in!" was Martha's only reply. Her keen ear, pressed against the panel, heard nothing in response but an oath, following another even more ungodly sound, and then the choking misery of a woman's convulsive sobs.

Mrs. Slawson set her shoulder against the door, braced herself for a mighty effort, and—

"Did you ever see the like of her?" muttered Sam, as, still busy fastening the garments he had hurriedly pulled on, he followed his wife into the Langbeins' flat, into the Langbeins' bedroom. There he saw her resolutely march up to the irate German, swing him suddenly about, and send him crashing, surprised, unresisting, to the opposite side of the room. For a second she stood regarding him scornfully.

"You poor, low-lived Dutchman, you!" she brought out with deliberation. "What d'you mean layin' your hand to a woman who hasn't the stren'th or the spirit to turn to, an' lick you back? Why don't you fight a fella your own size an' sect? That's fair play! A fine man you are! A fine neighbor you are! Just let me hear a peep out of you, an' I'll thrash you this minit to within a inch of your life. I don't need no law nor no policeman to keep the peace in any house where I live. I can keep the peace myself, if I have to lick every tenant in the place! I'm the law an' the policeman on my own account, an' if you budge from that floor till I tell you get up, I'll come over there an' set down on ye so hard, your wife won't know you from a pancake in the mornin'. I'll show you the power o' the press!"

Sam Slawson was no coward, but his face was pallid with consternation at Martha's hardihood. His mighty bulk, however, seeming to supplement hers, had its effect on the sobered German. He did not attempt to rise.

"As to you, you poor weak sister," said Mrs. Slawson, turning to the wife, "you've had your last lickin' so long as you live in this house. Believe me! I'm a hard-workin' woman, but I'm never too tired or too busy to come in an' take a round out of your old man, if he should ever dare lay finger to you again. I don't mind a friendly scrap oncet in a while with a neighbor. My muscles is good for more than your fat, beer-drinkin' Dutchman's any day. Let him up an' try 'em oncet, an' he'll see. Why don't you have some style about you an' land him one, where it'll do the most good, or else—leave him? But no, you wouldn't do that—I know you wouldn't! Some women has to cling to somethin', no matter if they have to support it themselves."

Mrs. Langbein's inarticulate sobbing had passed into a spasmodic struggle for breathless utterance.

"He—don't mean—no harm, Mis' Slawson. He's all right—ven he's soper. Only—it preaks my heart ven he vips me, und I don't deserve it."

"Breaks your heart? It ain't your heart I'm worryin' about. If he don't break your bones you're in luck!"

"Und I try to pe a goot vife to him. I tend him hand und foot."

"Ye-es, I know you do," returned Martha dryly. "But suppose you just try the foot in the future. See how it works."

"I to my pest mit dryin' to pe a goot cook. I geep his house so glean as a bin. Vat I don't do, Gott weiss, I don't know it. I ain't esk him for ein tcent already. I ain't drouble him mit pills off of de grocer oder de putcher, oder anny-von. I makes launtry efery veek for some liddle peoples, und mit mine own money I bays my pills. Ven you dell me how it iss I could make eferyting more smoother for him, I do it!"

"That's eggsackly the trouble," proclaimed Mrs. Slawson conclusively. "You make 'em too smooth. You make 'em so smooth, they're ackchelly slippery. No wonder the poor fella falls down. No man wants to spend all his life skatin' round, doin' fancy-figger stunts, because his wife's a dummy. Let'm get down to hard earth, an' if he kicks, heave a rock at'm. He'll soon stand up, an' walk straight like a little man. Let him lend a hand with the dooty-business, for a change. It'll take his attention off'n himself, give'm a rest from thinkin' he's an angel, an' that you hired out, when you married'm, to shout 'Glory!' every time he flaps a wing! That sort o' thing ain't healthy for men. It don't agree with their constitutions—An' now, good-night to you, an' may you have sweet dreams! Mr. Langbein, I ain't the slightest objeckshun to your gettin' up, if you want to. You know me now. I'm by the day, as you may have heard. But I can turn my hand to an odd job like this now an' then by the night, if it's necess'ry, so let me hear no more from you, sir, an' then we'll all be good friends, like we're partin' now. Good-night!"



CHAPTER VIII

Before setting out for his work the next morning, Sam Slawson tried to prepare Ma and Miss Lang for the more than probable appearance, during the day, of the officer of the law, he predicted Friedrich Langbein would have engaged to prosecute Martha.

"He has a clear case against you, mother, no doubt o' that. You'd no business in his place at all, let alone that you assaulted an' battered him. He can make it hot for us, an' I don't doubt he will."

Mrs. Slawson attended with undivided care to the breakfast needs of such of her flock as still remained to be fed. The youngsters had all vanished.

"If he wants to persecute me, let him persecute me. I guess I got a tongue in my head. I can tell the judge a thing or two which, bein' prob'ly a mother himself, he'll see the sense of. Do you think I want Sammy growin' up under my very eyes, a beer-drinkin' wife-beater?—because he seen the eggsample of it set before'm by a Dutchman, when he was a boy? Such things makes an impression on the young—which they ain't sense enough to know the difference between a eggsample an' a warnin'. An' the girls, too! As I told you las' night, it's bad for the country when matrimony ain't made to look like a prize-package, no matter what it reely is. What's goin' to become o' the population, I should like to know? Here's Cora now, wantin' to be a telefoam-girl when she grows up, an' there's no knowin' what Francie'll choose. But you can take it from me, they'll both of 'em drop their votes for the single life. They'll perfer to thump a machine o' their own, with twelve or fifteen per, comin' to 'em, rather than be the machine that's thumped, an' pay for the privilege out'n their own pockets besides."

As fate would have it, the day went placidly by, in spite of Mr. Slawson's somber prognostications. No one came to disturb the even tenor of its way. Then, at eveningfall, while Martha was still absent, there was a gentle rap upon the door, and Claire, anxious to anticipate Ma, made haste to answer it, and saw a stranger standing on the threshold. It was difficult, at first, to distinguish details in the dusk of the dim hallway, but after a moment she made out the rotund figure of Mr. Langbein. She could not see his face, but his voice was more than conciliatory.

"Eggscoose me, lady!" he began apologetically. "I haf for Mis' Slawson a liddle bresent here. I tink she like it. She look so goot-netchered, und I know she iss kind to bum animals. My vife, her Maltee cat vas having some liddle kittens already, a mont' ago. I tink Mis' Slawson, she lige to hef von off dem pussies, ja? Annyhow, I bring her von here, und I esk you vill gif it to her mit my tanks, und my kint regarts, und pest vishes und annyting else you tink I could do for her. You tell Mis' Slawson I lige her to esk me to do someting whenefer she needs it—yes?"

"Now what do you think of that?" was Martha's only comment, when Claire related the incident, and great Sam Slawson shook with laughter till his sides ached, and a fit of coughing set in, and said it was "a caution, but Mother always did have a winning way about her with the men."

"It's well I have, or I wouldn't 'a' drew you, Sammy—an' you shoor are a trump—only I wisht you'd get rid o' that cough—You had it just about long enough," Martha responded, half in mockery, half in affectionate earnest.

"An' now, me lad, leave us be, me an' Miss Claire. We has things of importance to talk over. It's to-morrow at ten she's to go see Mrs. Sherman. Miss Claire, you must be lookin' your best, for the first minit the madam claps eyes to you, that'll be the decidin' minit for you. Have you everything you need, ready to your hand? Is all your little laces an' frills done up fresh an' tidy, so's you can choose the becomingest? Where's that lace butterfly for your neck, I like so much? I washed it as careful as could be, a couple o' weeks ago, but have you wore it since?"

Claire hesitated. "I think I'll put on the simplest things I've got, Martha," she replied evasively. "Just one of my linen shirtwaists, with the stiff collar and cuffs. No fluffy ruffles at all."

"But that scrap o' lace at your throat, ain't fluffy ruffles. An' stiff, starched things don't kinder become you, Miss Claire. They ain't your style. You don't wanter look like you been dressed by your worst enemy, do you? You're so little an' dainty, you got to have delicate things to go with you. Say, just try that butterfly on you now. I want to see if it'll do, all right."

By this time Claire knew Martha well enough to realize it was useless to attempt to temporize or evade.

"I can't wear the butterfly, Martha dear," she said.

"Why can't you?"

"Well, now please, please don't worry, but I can't wear it, because I can't find it. I dare say it'll turn up some day when I least expect, but just now, it seems to be lost."

Martha looked grave. "It come out o' the wash all right, didn't it?" she inquired anxiously. "I remember distinkly leavin' it soak in the suds, so's there wouldn't be no strain-like, rubbin' it, an' the dust'd just drop out natural. But now I come to think of it, I don't recklect ironin' it. Now honest, did it come outer the wash, Miss Claire?"

"No, Martha—but—"

"There ain't no but about it. I musta gone an' lost your pretty lace for you, an' it was reel at that!"

"Never mind! It's of no consequence. Truly, please don't—"

"Worry? Shoor I won't worry. What's the use worryin'? But I'll make it right, you betcher life, which is much more to the purpose. Say, I shouldn't wonder but it got into the tub someways, an' then, when I let the water out, the suckage drew it down the pipe. Believe me, that's the very thing that happened, and—'I'll never see sweet Annie any more!'"

"It doesn't make a particle of difference, Martha. I never liked that butterfly as much as you did, you know."

"Perhaps you did an' perhaps you didn't, but all the same you're out a neck-fixin', an' it's my fault, an' so you're bound to let me get square, to save my face, Miss Claire. You see how it is, don't you? Well, last Christmas, Mrs. Granville she give me a lace jabbow—reel Irish mull an' Carrickmacross (that's lace from the old country, as you know as well as me). She told me all about it. Fine? It'd break your heart to think o' one o' them poor innercent colleens over there pricklin' her eyes out, makin' such grandjer for the like o' me, when no doubt she thought she was doin' it for some great dame, would be sportin' it out loud, in her auta on Fifth Avenoo. What use have I, in my business, for that kinder decoration, I should like to know! It'd only be distractin' me, gettin' in me pails when I'm scrubbin'. An' by the time Cora an' Francie is grown up, jabbows will be out. I'd much more use for the five-dollar-bill was folded up in the box alongside. That, now, was becomin' to my peculiar style o' beauty. But the jabbow! There ain't no use talkin', Miss Claire, you'll have to take it off'n my hands, I mean my chest, an' then we'll be quits on the butterfly business, an' no thanks to your nose on either side."

It was useless to protest.

The next morning when Claire started forth to beard the lioness in her den, she was tricked out in all the bravery of Martha's really beautiful "jabbow," and looked "as pretty as a picture, an' then some," as Mrs. Slawson confidentially assured Sam.

But the heart beneath the frilly lace and mull was anything but brave. It felt, in fact, quite as white and fluttery as the jabbow looked, and when Claire found herself being actually ushered into the boudoir of the august presence, and told to "wait please," she thought it would stop altogether for very abject fright.

Martha had tried, in a sort of casual, matter-of-course way, to prepare her little lady for the trial, by dropping hints every now and then, as to the best methods of dealing with employers—the proper way to carry oneself, when one "went to live out in private fam'lies."

"You see, you always been the private fam'ly yourself, Miss Claire, so it'll come kinder strange to you first-off, to look at things the other way. But it won't be so bad after you oncet get used to it. There's one thing it's good to remember. Them high-toned folks has somehow got it fixed in their minds that the rich must not be annoyed, so it'll be money in your pocket, as the sayin' is, if you can do your little stunt without makin' any fuss about it, or drawin' their attention. Just saw wood an' say nothin', as my husband says.

"Mrs. Sherman she told me, when I first went there, an' Radcliffe was a little baby, she 'strickly forbid anybody to touch'm.' It was on account o' what she called germs or somethin'. Well, I never had no particular yearnin' to inflect him with none o' my germs, but when she was off gallivantin', an' that poor little lonesome fella used to cry, an' put out his arms to be took, I'd take'm, an' give'm the only reel mother-huggin' he ever had in his life, an' no harm to any of us—to me that give it, or him that got it, or her that was no wiser. Then, later, when he was four or five, an' around that, she got a notion he was a angel-child, an' she'd useter go about tellin' the help, an' other folks, 'he must be guided by love alone.' I remember she said oncet he'd be 'as good as a kitten for hours at a time if you only give'm a ball of twine to play with.' Well, his nurse, she give'm the ball of twine one day when she had somethin' doin' that took up all her time an' attention on her own account, an' when she come back from her outin', you couldn't walk a step in the house without breakin' your leg (the nurse she did sprain her ankle), on account o' the cat's-cradle effect the young villain had strung acrost the halls, an' from one doorknob to the other, so there wasn't an inch o' the place free. An' he'd got the tooth-paste toobs, an' squoze out the insides, an' painted over every bit o' mahogany he could find—doors, an' furnitur', an' all. You can take it from me, that house was a sight after the angel-child got through with it. The girls an' me—the whole push—was workin' like mad clearin' up after'm before the madam'd come home, an' the nurse cryin' her eyes out for the pain, an' scared stiff 'less she'd be sent packin'. Also, 'if Radcliffe asked questions, we was to answer them truthful,' was another rule. An' the puzzles he'd put to you! One day, I remember, he got me cornered with a bunch that was such fierce propositions, Solomon in all his glory couldn't 'a' give him their truthful answers. Says he—Radcliffe, not Solomon—says he: 'I want another leg.'

"'You can't have it,' says I.

"'Why?' says he.

"'They ain't pervided,' I says. 'Little boys that's well-reggerlated, don't have but two legs.'

"'Why don't they?'

"'Because God thought two was enough for'm.'

"'Why did God think tho?'

"'You ask too many questions.'

"'Well, but—juth lithen—I want to know—now lithen—doth puthy-caths lay eggth?'

"'No!'

"'Why don't puthy-caths lay eggth?'

"'Because hens has a corner on the egg business.'

"'Why have they?'

"'Because they're born lucky, like Mr. Carnegie an' Mr. Rockefella.'

"'Doth Mr. Carnegie an' Mr. Rockefella—'

"'No!'

"'Why don't they?'

"'Say, Radcliffe, I ain't had a hard day,' says I. 'But you make me tired.'

"'Why do I? Now—juth wonth more—now—now lithen wonth more—ith God a lady?'"

As Claire sat waiting for Mrs. Sherman, stray scraps of recollection, such as these, flitted through her mind and helped to while the time away. Then, as she still waited, she grew gradually more composed, less unfamiliar with her surroundings, and the strange predicament in which she found herself. She could, at length, look at the door she supposed led into Mrs. Sherman's room, without such a quick contraction of the heart as caused her breath to come in labored gasps, could make some sort of sketchy outline of the part she was foreordained to take in the coming interview, and not find herself barren of resource, even if Mrs. Sherman should say so-and-so, instead of so-and-so.

She had waited so long, had had such ample time to get herself well in hand, that when, at last, a door opened (not Mrs. Sherman's door at all, but another), and a tall, upright masculine figure appeared in the doorway, she at once jumped to the conclusion it was Shaw, the butler, come to summon her into the presence, and rose to follow, without too much inner perturbation.

"Mrs. Sherman is prevented from keeping her appointment with you this morning," descended to her from an altitude far above her own. "She hopes you will excuse her. She has asked me to talk with you in her stead. You are Miss Lang, I believe? I am Mrs. Sherman's brother. My name is Ronald."



CHAPTER IX

It is hard to readjust all one's prearranged plans in the twinkling of an eye. Claire felt as if she had received a sudden dash of cold water square in the face. She quite gulped from the shock of it. How in the world was she to adapt herself to this brand-new set of conditions on such short notice—on no notice at all? How was she to be anything but awkwardly monosyllabic?

"Sit down, please."

Obediently she sat.

"Martha—Mrs. Slawson—tells me, your father was Judge Lang of Michigan?"

"Yes—Grand Rapids."

"You are a college graduate?"

"Wellesley."

"You have taught before?"

"I tutored a girl throughout a whole summer. Prepared her for her college entrance exams."

"She passed creditably?"

"She wasn't conditioned in anything."

"How are you on discipline?"

"I don't know."

"You have had no experience? Never tried your hand at training a boy, for example?"

Claire's blue-gray eyes grew suddenly audacious, and the bridge of her short nose wrinkled up delightfully in a roguish smile.

"I trained my father. He was a dear old boy—the dearest in the world. He used to say he had never been brought up, until I came along. He used to say I ruled him with a rod of iron. But he was very well-behaved before I got through with him. He was quite a model boy, really."

Glancing quickly up into the steadfast eyes that had, at first, seemed to her so stern as to be almost forbidding, she met an expression so mild, so full of winning kindness, that she suddenly remembered and understood what Martha had meant when she said once: "A body wouldn't call the queen her cousin when he looks at you like that!"

"Your father was a credit to your bringing-up, certainly. I never had the honor of meeting Judge Lang, but I knew him by reputation. I remember to have heard some one say of him once—'He was a judge after Socrates' own heart. He heard courteously, he answered wisely, he considered soberly, he decided impartially. Added to this, he was one whom kings could not corrupt.' That is an enviable record."

Claire's eyes filled with grateful moisture, but she did not allow them to overflow. She nodded rapidly once or twice in a quaint, characteristic little fashion, and then sat silent, examining the links in her silver-meshed purse, with elaborate attention.

"Perhaps Mrs. Slawson has told you that my young nephew is something of a pickle."

The question restored Claire at once. "I'm fond of pickles."

"Good! I believe there are said to be fifty-eight varieties. Are you prepared to smack your lips over him, whichever he may be?"

"Well, if I can't smack my lips, there's always the alternative of smacking him."

Mr. Ronald laughed. "Not allowed," he announced regretfully. "My sister won't have it. Radcliffe is to be guided 'by love alone.'"

"Whose love, please? His or mine?"

Again Mr. Ronald laughed. "Now you've got me!" he admitted. "Perhaps a little of both. Do you think you could supply your share? I have no doubt of your being able to secure his."

"I like children. We've always managed to hit it off pretty well, the kiddies and I, but, of course, I can't guarantee anything definite in connection with your little boy, because, you see, I've never been a governess before. I've only had to do with youngsters who've come a-visiting, or else the small, lower East-siders at the Settlement. But I'll promise to do my best."

"'Who does the best his circumstance allows, does well, acts nobly. Angles could no more,' as I wrote in my sister's autograph-album when I was a boy," announced Mr. Ronald gravely.

Claire smiled over at him with appreciation. "I'd love to come and try," she said heartily.

She did not realize she had lost all sensation of alarm, had forgotten her altered position, that she was no longer one whom these people would regard as their social equal. She was talking as one talks to a friend.

"And if Radcliffe doesn't get on—if he doesn't improve, I should say—if you don't like me, you can always send me away, you know."

For a very long moment Mr. Ronald sat silent. So long a moment, indeed, that Claire, waiting in growing suspense for his answer, suddenly remembered all those things she had forgotten, and her earlier embarrassment returned with a wave of bitter self-reproach. She accused herself of having been too free. She had overstepped her privilege. It was not apparent to her that he was trying to visualize the picture she had drawn, the possibility of his not liking her and sending her away, you know, and that, to his utter consternation, he found it was something he could not in the least conceive of himself as doing. That, on the contrary, the vision of her going away for any reason, of her passing out of his life, now she had once stepped into it, left him with a chill sensation in the cardiac region that was as unexpected as it was disturbing. When he spoke at last, it was with a quick, authoritative brevity that seemed to Claire to bear out her apprehension, and prove he thought she had forgotten her place, her new place as "hired help," and must be checked lest she presume on good nature and take a tone to her employers that was not to be tolerated.

"You will come without fail on Monday morning."

"Very well."

Her manner was so studiously cold and ceremonious, so sharply in contrast with her former piquant friendliness, that Mr. Ronald looked up in surprise.

"It is convenient for you to come on Monday, I hope?"

"Perfectly."

"I presume my sister, Mrs. Sherman, will take up with you the question of—er—compensation."

"O—" quickly, with a little shudder, "that's all right!"

"If it isn't all right, it shall be made so," said Mr. Ronald cordially.

Claire winced. "It is quite, it is perfectly all right!" she repeated hurriedly, anxious to escape the distasteful subject, still smarting under the lash of her own self-condemnation—her own wounded pride.

How could she have forgotten, even for a moment, that she was no longer in a position to deal with these people on equal terms? That now, kindness on their part meant patronage, on hers presumption. Of course, she deserved the snub she had received. But, all the same, it hurt! O, but it hurt! She knew her George Eliot well. It was a pity she did not recall and apply a certain passage in Maggie Tulliver's experience.

"It did not occur to her that her irritation was due to the pleasanter emotion which preceded it, just as when we are satisfied with a sense of glowing warmth, an innocent drop of cold water may fall upon us with a sudden smart."

Mr. Ronald, searching her face for some clue to the abrupt change in her voice and manner, saw her cheeks grow white, her lips and chin quiver painfully.

"You are not well?" he asked, after a second of troubled groping in the dark.

"O, perfectly." She recollected Martha's injunction, "Never you let on to 'em, any of your worries. The rich must not be annoyed," and pulled herself together with a determined mental grip.

"It is good that, being so far away from home, you can be under the care of your old nurse," observed Mr. Ronald thoughtfully.

"My old nurse," Claire mechanically repeated, preoccupied with her own painful meditations.

"Martha. It is good, it certainly must be comforting to those who care for you, to know you are being looked after by so old and trusted a family servant."

Claire did not reply. She was hardly conscious he was speaking.

"When Martha first mentioned you to me—to Mrs. Sherman, rather—she described you as her young lady. She has a very warm feeling for you. I think she considers you in the light of personal property, like a child of her own. That's excusable—it's commendable, even, in such a case as this. I believe she said she nursed you till you were able to walk."

With a shock of sudden realization, Claire waked to the fact that something was wrong somewhere—something that it was up to her to make right at once. And yet, it was all so cloudy, so confused in her mind with her duty to Martha, her duty to herself, and to these people—her fear of being again kindly but firmly put back in her place if she ventured the merest fraction of an inch beyond the boundary prescribed by this grandee of the autocratic bearing and "keep-off-the-grass expression," that she hesitated, and her opportunity was lost.

"I think I must go now," she announced abruptly, and rose, got past him somehow, and made blindly for the door. Then there was the dim vista of the long hall stretching before her, like a path of escape, and she fled its length, and down that of the staircase. Then out at the street-door, and into the chill of the cold December noonday.

When she had vanished, Francis Ronald stood a moment with eyes fixed in the direction she had taken. Then, abruptly, he seized the telephone that stood upon the table beside him, switched it to connect with the basement region, and called for Mrs. Slawson.

"This is Mr. Ronald speaking. Is Martha there?"

"Yes, sir. Please hold the wire, and I'll call her."

"Be quick!"

"Yes, sir!"

A second, and Martha's voice repeated his name. "Mr. Ronald, this is Martha!"

"Good! I want you to put on your things at once, and follow Miss Lang," he directed briefly. "I do not think she's sick, but as she was talking to me, I noticed she grew suddenly quite pale, and seemed troubled and anxious. Waste no time! Go at once!"

The only answer was a sharp click over the wire, as Mrs. Slawson snapped the receiver into its crotch.

But though Claire was not five minutes in advance of her, Martha was unable to make up the distance between them, and by the time she had mounted the stairs leading to the Elevated, and stood panting for breath on the platform, the train she had hoped to catch was to be seen disappearing around the curve at Fifty-third Street.

All the way uptown she speculated as to the why and wherefore of Mr. Ronald's immediate concern about Claire.

"It's kinder previous, his gettin' so stirred up over her at this stage o' the game," she pondered. "It ain't natural, or it ain't lucky. I'd much liefer have it go slower, an' be more thora. A thing like this affair I'm tryin' to menoover, is like some o' the things you cook. You want to leave 'em get good an' het-up before the stirrin' begins. If they're stirred up too soon, they're ap' to cruddle on you, an' never get that nice, smooth, thick, gooey look you like to see in rich custuds, same as love-affairs. I hope she didn't go an' have a scare on, an' give 'em to think she ain't healthy. She's as sound as a nut, but if Mis' Sherman once is fixed with the notion she's subjeck to faint-spells, nothin' on earth will change her mind, an' then it'll be nit, not, nohow for Martha's little scheme. I must caution Miss Claire about showin' the white feather. No matter how weak-kneed she feels, she's just got to buck up an' ack like she's a soldier. That's how—"

Martha had reached her own street, and was turning the corner, when she stopped with a sensation as of a quick, fierce clutching at her heart. Evidently there had been some sort of accident, for a great crowd was gathered on the sidewalk, and beside the gutter-curbstone, just ahead of her, stood waiting an ambulance. Her healthy, normal mind did not easily jump at tragic conclusions. She did not, as a general thing, fear the worst, did not even accept it when it came, but now, somehow, a close association of ideas suggested Claire in an instant, and before ever she had stirred a step, she saw in her mind's eye the delicate little form she loved, lying injured, maybe mangled, stretched out upon the asphalt, in the midst of the curious throng.

She hurried, hurried faster than any of the others who were also hurrying, and pushed her way on through the press to the very edge of the crowd. A crying woman caught wildly at her arm, as she stood for a second struggling to advance.

"It's a child!—A little girl—run over by an automobile! O God help the poor mother!" the stranger sobbed hysterically.

Martha freed herself from the clinging fingers and pressed forward. "A child—Miss Claire's such a little thing, no wonder they think she's a child," she murmured. "True for you, my good woman, God help the poor mother!"

"You know her?"

"I know Miss Claire."

For some reason the crowd made way, and let her through to the very heart of it, and there—sure enough, there was Claire, but Claire crying and kneeling over an outstretched little form, lying unconscious on the pavement.

"Why, it's—my Francie!" said Martha quietly.



CHAPTER X

Through all the days of suspense and doubt, Claire swung like a faithful little pendulum between home, the Shermans, and the hospital.

Then, as hope strengthened, she was the bearer of gifts, flowers, fruit, toys from Mr. Ronald and his sister, which Martha acknowledged in her own characteristic fashion.

"Tell'm the Slawson fam'ly is bound to be in it. It seems it's the whole style for ladies to go under a operation, an' as I ain't eggsackly got the time, Francie, she's keepin' up the tone for us. If you wanter folla the fashions these days, you got to gather your skirts about you, tight as they are, an' run. But what's a little inconvenience, compared with knowin' you're cuttin' a dash!

"Tell'm I thank'm, an' tell Lor'—Mister Ronald, it's good of'm to be tryin' to get damages for Francie out o' the auta that run her down, an' if there was somethin' comin' to us to pay the doctors an' suchlike, it'd be welcome. But, somehow, I always was shy o' monkeyin' with the law. It's like to catch a body in such queer places, where you'd least expect. Before a fella knows it, he's up for liable, or breaches o' promise, an' his private letters to the bosom of his fam'ly (which nowadays they're mostly ruffles), his letters to the bosom of his fam'ly is read out loud in court, an' then printed in the papers next mornin', an' everybody's laughin' at'm, because he called his wife 'My darlin' Tootsie,' which she never been accustomed to answer to anythin' but the name o' Sarah. An' it's up to him to pay the costs, when ten to one it's the other party's to blame. I guess p'raps we better leave good enough alone. If we begin to get the l'yers after us, no tellin' where we'll end. Who knows but they might find the accident injured the auto, 'stead o' Francie. If we work hard, an' they give us time, me an' Sammy can, maybe, make out to pay the doctors. But add to that, to have to buy a brand-new machine for the fella that run over Francie—that'd be sorter discouragin'."

She paused, and Claire began to pull on her gloves.

"By the way," said Martha, "how's things down to the Shermans'? Seems like a hunderd years since I was there. The las' time I laid eyes on Eliza, she was in excellent spirits—I seen the bottle. I wonder if she's still—very still, takin' a sly nip on the side, as she calls it, which means a sly nip off the sideboard. You can take it from me, if she don't let up, before she knows it she'll be a teetotal wrack."

"I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Eliza," observed Claire, smiling.

"Why, of course, you haven't, which it wouldn't be a pleasure, anyhow. But what I reely want to know is, how you makin' out with Radcliffe? I been so took up with Francie all this while, I clean forgot to ask before. Is he behavin' all right? Does he mind what you say? Does he do his lessons good?"

Claire's brows drew together in a troubled little frown, as she labored over the clasp of her glove.

"O, Radcliffe," she let fall carelessly. "Radcliffe's an unruly little Hessian, of course, but I suppose all boys are mischievous at times."

Martha pondered. "Well, not all boys are mischievous in just the same way, thank God! This trouble o' Francie's has threw me all out in more ways than one. If everything had 'a' went as I'd expected, I'd been workin' at the Shermans' straight along these days, an' you wouldn't 'a' had a mite o' trouble with the little fella. Him an' I understands each other perfeckly, an' with me a loomin' up on the landscape, he kinder sees the sense o' walkin' a chalk-line, not kickin' up his heels too frisky. I'd calculated on being there, to sorter back you up, till you'd got uster the place, an' made 'em understand you mean business."

Claire laughed, a quick, sharp little laugh.

"O, I think I'm gradually making them understand I mean business," she said. "And I'm sure it is better, since I have to be there at all, that I should be there without you, independent of any help. I couldn't make Radcliffe respect my authority, if I depended on some one else to enforce it. It's just one of those cases where one has to fight one's own battle alone."

"Then it is a battle?" Martha inquired quietly.

"O, it's a battle, 'all right,'" laughed Claire mirthlessly, and before Mrs. Slawson could probe her further, she managed to make her escape.

She did not wish to burden Martha with her vexations. Martha had troubles of her own. Moreover, those that were most worrisome to Claire, Martha, in the very nature of things, would not understand.

Claire's first few weeks at the Shermans' had been uneventful enough. Radcliffe had found amusement in the novelty of the situation, had deigned to play school with her, and permitted her to "make believe" she was "the teacher." He was willing to "pretend" to be her "scholar," just as he would have been willing to pretend to be the horse, if he and another boy had been playing, and the other boy had chosen to be driver for a while. But turn about is fair play, and when the days passed, and Claire showed no sign of relinquishing her claim, he grew restless, mutinous, and she had all she could do to keep him in order.

Gradually it began to dawn upon him that this very little person, kind and companionable as she seemed, suffered under the delusion that he was going to obey her—that, somehow, she was going to constrain him to obey her. Of course, this was the sheerest nonsense. How could she make him do anything he didn't want to do, since his mother had told her, in his presence, that he was to be governed by love alone, and, fortunately, her lack of superior size and strength forbade her love from expressing itself as, he shudderingly remembered, Martha's had done on one occasion. No, plainly he had the advantage of Miss Lang, but until she clearly understood it, there were apt to be annoyances. So, without taking the trouble to make the punishment fit the crime, he casually locked her in the sitting-room closet one morning. She had stepped inside to hang up her hat and coat as usual, and it was quite easy, swiftly, noiselessly, to close the door upon her, and turn the key.

He paused a moment, choking back his nervous laughter, waiting to hear her bang on the panel, and clamor to be let out. But when she made no outcry, when, beyond one or two futile turnings of the knob, there was no further attempt on her part to free herself, he stole upstairs to the schoolroom, and made merry over his clever exploit.

For a full minute after she found herself in darkness, Claire did not realize she was a prisoner. The door had swung to after her, she thought, that was all. But, when she turned the knob, and still it did not open, she began to suspect the truth. Her first impulse was to call out, but her better judgment told her it would be better to wait with what dignity she might until Radcliffe tired of his trick, or some one else came and released her. Radcliffe would tire the more quickly, she reasoned, if she did not raise a disturbance. When he saw she was not to be teased, he would come and let her out. She stood with her hot cheek pressed against the cool wood of the closet-door, waiting for him to come. And listening for his steps, she heard other steps—other steps which approached, and entered the sitting-room. She heard the voices of Mrs. Sherman and Mr. Ronald in earnest conversation.

"If I thought such a thing were possible I'd send her away to-morrow," Mrs. Sherman was saying in a high-pitched, excited voice.

"Why such delay? Why not to-day?" inquired Mr. Ronald ironically.

"But, of course," continued his sister, ignoring his interruption, "I know there's nothing to be really afraid of."

"Well, then, if you know there's nothing to be afraid of, what are you afraid of?"

"I'm not really afraid. I'm just talking things over. You see, she's so uncommonly pretty, and—men are men, and you're no exception."

"I hope not. I don't want to be an exception."

"Don't you think she's uncommonly pretty?"

"No, I don't think I should call her—pretty," said Mr. Ronald with an emphasis his sister might well have challenged, if she had not been so preoccupied with her own thoughts that she missed its point.

"Well, I do. I think she's quite pretty enough to excuse, I mean, explain your having a passing fancy for her."

"I haven't a passing fancy for her."

"Well, I'm much relieved to hear you say so, for even if it were only a passing fancy, I'd feel I ought to send her away. You never can tell how such things will develop."

"You certainly can't."

"And you may rest assured mother and I don't want you to ruin your life by throwing yourself away on a penniless, unknown little governess, when you might have your choice from among the best-born, wealthiest girls in town."

"Miss Lang is as well-born as any one we know."

"We have only her word for it."

"No, her nurse, an old family servant, Martha Slawson, corroborates her—if you require corroboration."

"Don't you? Would you be satisfied to pick some one off the street, as it were, and take her into your house and give her your innocent child to train?"

"My innocent children being so extremely vague, I am not concerning myself as to their education. But I certainly accept Miss Lang's word, and I accept Martha's."

"You're easily satisfied. Positively, Frank, I believe you have a fancy for the girl, in spite of what you say. And for all our sakes, for mother's and mine and yours and—yes—even hers, it will be best for me to tell her to go."

"I rather like the way you rank us. Mother and you first—then I come, and last—even the poor little girl!"

"Well, you may laugh if you want to, but when a child like Radcliffe notices that you're not indifferent to her, there must be some truth in it. He confided to me last night, 'Uncle Frank likes Miss Lang a lot. I guess she's his best girl! Isn't she his best girl?' I told him certainly not. But I lay awake most of the night, worrying about it."

Mr. Ronald had evidently had enough of the interview. Claire could hear his firm steps, as he strode across the floor to the door.

"I advise you to quit worrying, Catherine," he said. "It doesn't pay. Moreover, I assure you I've no passing fancy (I quote your words) for Miss Lang. I hope you won't be so foolish as to dismiss her on my account. She's an excellent teacher, a good disciplinarian. It would be difficult to find another as capable as she, one who, at the same time, would put up with Radcliffe's waywardness, and your—our—(I'll put it picturesquely, after the manner of Martha) our indiosincrazies. Take my advice. Don't part with Miss Lang. She's the right person in the right place. Good-morning!"

"Frank, Frank! Don't leave me like that. I know I've terribly annoyed you. I can't bear to feel you're provoked with me, and yet I'm only acting for your good. Please kiss me good-by. I'm going away. I won't see you for two whole days. I'm going to Tuxedo this morning to stay over night with Amy Pelham. There's a man she's terribly interested in, and she wants me to meet him, and tell her what I think of him. He's been attentive to her for ever so long, and yet he doesn't—his name is Mr. Robert—" Her words frayed off in the distance, as she hurriedly followed her brother out into the hall and downstairs.

How long Claire stood huddled against the closet-door she never knew. The first thing of which she was clearly conscious was the feel of a key stealthily moved in the lock beneath her hand. Then the sounds of footsteps lightly tiptoeing away. Mechanically she turned the knob, the door yielded, and she staggered blindly out from the darkness into the sunlit room. It was deserted.

If Mrs. Sherman had been there, Claire would have given way at once, letting her sense of outraged pride escape her in a torrent of tears, a storm of indignant protest. Happily, there being no one to cry to, she had time to gather herself together before going up to face Radcliffe. When she entered the schoolroom, he pretended to be studiously busied with his books, and so did not notice that she was rather a long time closing the door after her, and that she also had business with the lock of the door opposite. He really only looked up when she stationed herself behind her desk, and summoned him to recite.

"I do' want to!" announced Radcliffe resolutely.

"Very well," said Claire, "then we'll sit here until you do."

Radcliffe grinned. It seemed to him things were all going his way, this clear, sunny morning. He began to whistle, in a breathy undertone.

Claire made no protest. She simply sat and waited.

Radcliffe took up his pencil, and began scrawling pictures over both sides of his slate, exulting in the squeaking sounds he produced. Still the teacher did not interfere. But when, tired of his scratching, he concluded the time had arrived for his grand demonstration, his crowning declaration of independence, he rose, carelessly shoved his books aside, strode to the door, intending masterfully to leave the room, and—discovered he was securely locked and bolted in. In a flash he was across the room, tearing at the lock of the second door with frantic fingers. That, too, had been made fast. He turned upon Claire like a little fiend, his eyes flashing, his hands clenched.

"You—you—you two-cent Willie!" he screamed.

Claire pretended not to see or hear. In reality she was acutely conscious of every move he made, for, small as he was, his pent-in rage gave him a strength she might well fear to put to the test. It was the tug of war. The question was, who would be conqueror?

Through the short hours of the winter forenoon, hours that seemed as interminable to Claire as they did to Radcliffe, the battle raged. There was no sign of capitulation on either side.

In the course of the morning, and during one of Radcliffe's fiercest outbreaks, Claire took up the telephone instrument and quietly instructed Shaw to bring no luncheon-trays to the schoolroom at mid-day.

"Two glasses of hot milk will be all we need," she said, whereupon Radcliffe leaped upon her, trying to wrest the transmitter from her hand, beating her with his hard little fists.

"I won't drink milk! I won't! I won't!" he shouted madly. "An' I'll kill you, if you won't let me have my lunch, you—you—you mizzer'ble two-cent Willie!"

As the day drew on, his white face grew flushed, her fevered one white, and both were haggard and lined from the struggle. Then, at about three o'clock, Mr. Ronald telephoned up to say he wished Radcliffe to go for a drive with him.

Claire replied it was impossible.

"Why?" came back to her over the wire.

"Because he needs punishment, and I am going to see that he gets it."

"And if I interfere?"

"I resign at once. Even as it is—"

"Do you think you are strong enough—strong enough physically, to fight to the finish?"

"I am strong enough for anything."

"I believe you. But if you should find him one too many for you, I shall be close at hand, and at a word from you I will come to the rescue."

"No fear of my needing help. Good-by!"

She hung up the receiver with a click of finality.

Outside, the sky grew gray and threatening. Inside, the evening shadows began to gather. First they thickened in the corners of the room; then spread and spread until the whole place turned vague and dusky.

The first violence of his rage was spent, but Radcliffe, sullen and unconquered still, kept up the conflict in silent rebellion. He had not drunk his milk, so neither had Claire hers. The two glasses stood untouched upon her desk, where she had placed them at noon. It was so still in the room Claire would have thought the boy had fallen asleep, worn out with his struggles, but for the quick, catching breaths that, like soundless sobs, escaped him every now and then. It had been dark a long, long time when, suddenly, a shaft of light from a just lit window opposite, struck over across to them, reflecting into the shadow, and making visible Radcliffe's little figure cowering back in the shelter of a huge leather armchair. He looked so pitifully small and appealing, that Claire longed to gather him up in her arms, but she forebore and sat still and waited.

Then, at last, just as the clock of a nearby church most solemnly boomed forth eight reverberating strokes, a chastened little figure slid out of the great chair, and groped its way slowly, painfully along until it reached Claire's side.

"I will—be—good!" Radcliffe whispered chokingly, so low she had to bend her head to hear.

Claire laid her arms about him and he clung to her neck, trembling.



CHAPTER XI

It was almost ten o'clock when Claire left the house. She waited to see Radcliffe properly fed, and put to bed, before she went. She covered him up, and tucked him in as, in all his life, he had never been covered up, and tucked in, before. Then, dinnerless and faint, she slipped out into the bleak night.

She was too exhausted to feel triumphant over her conquest. The only sensations she realized were a dead weariness that hung on her spirit and body like a palpable weight, and, far down in her heart, something that smouldered and burned like a live ember, ready to burst forth and blaze at a touch.

She had walked but a block or two when, through her numbness, crept a dim little shadow of dread. At first it was nothing more than an inner suggestion to hasten her steps, but gradually it became a conscious impulse to outstrip something or some one behind her—some one or something whose footfalls, resounding faintly through the deserted street, kept such accurate pace with her own, that they sounded like their echo.

It was not until she had quickened her steps, and found that the other's steps had quickened, too, not until she had slowed down to almost a saunter, only to discover that the one behind was lagging also, that she acknowledged to herself she was being followed.

Then, from out the far reaches of her memory, came the words of Aunt Amelia's formula: "Sir, you are no gentleman. If you were a gentleman—" But straightway followed Martha's trenchant criticism.

"Believe me, that's rot! It might go all right on the stage, for a girl to stop, an' let off some elercution while the villain still pursued her, but here in New York City it wouldn't work. Not on your life it wouldn't. Villains ain't pausin' these busy days, in their mad careers, for no recitation-stunts, I don't care how genteel you get 'em off. If they're on the job, you got to step lively, an' not linger 'round for no sweet farewells. Now, you got your little temper with you, all right, all right! If you also got a umbrella, why, just you make a combine o' the two an'—aim for the bull's eye, though his nose will do just as good, specially if it's the bleedin' v'riety. No! P'licemen ain't what I'd reckmend, for bein' called to the resquer. In the first place, they ain't ap' to be there. An', besides, they wouldn't know what to do if they was. P'licemen is funny that way.

"They mean well, but they get upset if anythin' 's doin' on their beat. They like things quiet. An' they don't like to run in their friends, an' so, by the time you think you made 'em understand what you're drivin' at, the villain has got away, an' you're like to be hauled up before the magistrate for disturbin' the peace, which, bein' so shy an' bashful before high officials, p'licemen don't like to blow in at court without somethin' to show for the way they been workin'."

It all flashed across Claire's mind in an instant, like a picture thrown across a screen. Then, without pausing to consider what she meant to do, she halted, turned, and—was face to face with Francis Ronald.

Before he could speak, she flashed upon him two angry eyes.

"What do you mean by following me?"

"It is late—too late for you to be out in the streets alone," he answered quietly.

Claire laughed. "You forget I'm not a society girl. I'm a girl who works for her living. I can't carry a chaperon about with me wherever I go. I must take care of myself, and—I know how to do it. I'm not afraid."

"I believe you."

"Then—good-night!"

"I intend to see you home."

"I don't need you."

"Nevertheless, I intend to see you home."

"I don't—want you."

"Notwithstanding which—"

He hailed a passing motor-taxi, gave the chauffeur Martha's street and number, after he had succeeded in extracting them from Claire, and then, in spite of protests, helped her in.

For a long time she sat beside him in silence, trying to quell in herself a weak inclination to shed tears, because—because he had compelled her to do something against her will.

He did not attempt any conversation, and when, at last, she spoke, it was of her own accord.

"I've decided to resign my position."

"Is it permitted me to know why?"

"I can't stay."

"That is no explanation."

"I don't feel I can manage Radcliffe."

"Pardon me, you know you can. You have proved it. He is your bond-slave, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer."

Claire laughed, a sharp, cutting little laugh that was like a keen knife turned on herself.

"O, it would have to be for poorer—'all right, all right,' as Martha says," she cried scornfully. "But it has been too hard—to-day. I can't endure any more."

"You won't have to. Radcliffe is conquered, so far as you are concerned. 'Twill be plain sailing, after this."

"I'd rather do something else. I'd like something different."

"I did not think you were a quitter."

"I'm not."

"O, yes, you are, if you give up before the game is done. No good sport does that."

"I've no ambition to be a good sport."

"Perhaps not. But you are a good sport. A thorough good sport. And you won't give up till you've seen this thing through."

"Is that a prediction, or a—command? It sounds like a command."

"It is whatever will hold you to the business you've undertaken. I want you to conquer the rest, as you've conquered Radcliffe."

"The rest?"

"Yes."

"What do you mean by the rest?"

"I mean circumstances. I mean obstacles. I mean, my mother—my sister."

"I don't—understand."

"Perhaps not."

"And suppose (forgive me if I seem rude), suppose I don't consider the rest worth conquering? Why should I? What one has to strive so for—"

"Is worth the most. One has to strive for everything in this world, everything that is really worth while. One has to strive to get it, one has to strive to keep it."

"Well, I don't think I care very much to-night, if I never get anything ever again in all my life to come."

"Poor little tired girl!"

Claire's chin went up with a jerk. "I don't need your pity, I won't have it. I am a stranger to you and to your friends. I am—" The defiant chin began to quiver.

"If you were not so tired," Francis Ronald said gravely, "I'd have this thing out with you, here and now. I'd make you tell me why you so wilfully misunderstand. Why you seem to take pleasure in saying things that are meant to hurt me, and must hurt you. As it is—"

Claire turned on him impetuously. "I don't ask you to make allowances for me. If I do what displeases you, I give you perfect liberty to find fault. I'm not too tired to listen. But as to your making me do or say anything I don't choose, why—"

He shook his head. "I'm afraid you are a hopeless proposition, at least for the present. Perhaps, some time I may be able to make you understand—Forgive me! I should say, perhaps, some time you may be willing to understand."

Their chauffeur drew up beside the curbstone in front of Martha's door, then sprang down from his seat to prove to his lordly-looking "fare" that he knew his business, and was deserving of as large a tip as a correct estimate of his merit might suggest.

Francis Ronald took Claire's key from her, fitted it into the lock of the outer door, and opened it for her.

"And you will stand by Radcliffe? You won't desert him?" he asked, as she was about to pass into the house.

"I'll show you that, at least, I'm not a quitter, even if I am a hopeless proposition, as you say."

A faint shadow of a smile flitted across his face as, with head held proudly erect, she turned and left him.

"No, you're not a quitter," he muttered to himself, "but—neither am I!"

The determined set of his jaw would have rekindled that inner rebellious fire in Claire, if she had seen it. But she was seeing nothing just at that moment, save Martha, who, to her amazement, stood ready to receive her in the inner hall.

"Ain't it just grand?" inquired Mrs. Slawson. "They told me yesterday, 'all things bein' equal,' they'd maybe leave us back soon, but I didn't put no stock in it, knowin' they never is equal. So I just held me tongue an' waited, an' this mornin', like a bolster outer a blue sky, come the word that at noon we could go. Believe me, I didn't wait for no old shoes or rice to be threw after me. I got into their old amberlance-carriage, as happy as a blushin' bride bein' led to the halter, an' Francie an' me come away reji'cin'. Say, but what ails you? You look sorter—sorter like a—strained relation or somethin'. What you been doin' to yourself to get so white an' holler-eyed? What kep' you so late?"

"I had a tussle with Radcliffe."

"Who won out?"

"I did, but it took me all day."

"Never mind. It'd been cheap at the price, if it had 'a' took you all week. How come the madam to give you a free hand?"

"She was away."

"Anybody else know what was goin' on? Any of the fam'ly?"

"Yes, Mr. Ronald. He brought me home. I didn't want him to, but he did. He just made me let him, and—O, Martha—I can't bear—I can't bear—"

"You mean you can't bear him?"

Claire nodded, choking back her tears.

"Now, what do you think o' that!" ejaculated Mrs. Slawson pensively. "An' he so pop'lar with the ladies! Why, you'd oughter hear them stylish lady-friends o' Mrs. Sherman praisin' 'm to her face. It'd make you blush for their modesty, which they don't seem to have none, an' that's a fac'. You can take it from me, you're the only one he ever come in contract with, has such a hate on'm. I wouldn't 'a' believed it, unless I'd 'a' had it from off of your own lips. But there's no use tryin' to argue such things. Taste is different. What pleases one, pizens another. In the mean time—an' it is a mean time for you, you poor, wore-out child—I've some things here, hot an' tasty, that'll encourage your stummick, no matter how it's turned on some other things. As I says to Sammy, it's a poor stummick won't warm its own bit, but all the same, there's times when somethin' steamin' does your heart as much good as it does your stummick, which, the two o' them bein' such near neighbors, no wonder we get 'em mixed up sometimes, an' think the one is starved when it's only the other."



CHAPTER XII

It proved altogether easier for Martha, now Francie was at home again.

"You see, I can tend her an' sandwich in some work besides," Mrs. Slawson explained cheerfully. "An' Ma's a whizz at settin' by bedsides helpin' patients get up their appetites. Says she, 'Now drink this nice glass o' egg-nog, Francie, me child,' she says. 'An' if you'll drink it, I'll take one just like it meself.' An' true for you, she does. The goodness o' Ma is astonishin'."

Then one day Sam Slawson came home with a tragic face.

"I've lost my job, Martha!" he stated baldly.

For a moment his wife stood silent under the blow, and all it entailed. Then, with an almost imperceptible squaring of her broad shoulders, she braced herself to meet it, as she herself would say, like a soldier. "Well, it's kinder hard on you, lad," she answered. "But there's no use grievin'. If it had to happen, it couldn't 'a' happened at a better time, for you bein' home, an' able to look after Francie, will give me a chance to go out reg'lar to my work again. An' before you know it, Francie, she'll be running about as good as new, an' you'll have another job, an' we'll be on the top o' the wave. Here's Miss Claire, bless her, payin' me seven dollars a week board, which she doesn't eat no more than a bird, an' Sammy singin' in the surplus choir, an' gettin' fifty cents a week for it, an' extra for funer'ls (it'd take your time to hear'm lamentin' because business ain't brisker in the funer'l line!). Why, we ain't no call to be discouraged. You can take it from me, Sammy Slawson, when things seem to be kinder shuttin' down on ye, an' gettin' black-like, same's they lately been doin' on us, that ain't no time to be chicken-hearted. Anybody could fall down when they're knocked. That's too dead-easy! No, what we want, is buck up an' have some style about us. When things shuts down an' gets dark at the movin'-picture show, then it's time to sit up an' take notice. That means somethin's doin'—you're goin' to be showed somethin' interestin'. Well, it's the same with us. But if you lose your sand at the first go-off, an' sag down an' hide your face in your hands, well, you'll miss the show. You won't see a bloomin' thing."

And Martha, sleeves rolled up, enveloped in an enormous blue-checked apron, returned to her assault on the dough she was kneading, with redoubled zeal.

"Bread, mother?" asked Sam dully, letting himself down wearily into a chair by the drop-table, staring indifferently before him out of blank eyes.

"Shoor! An' I put some currants in, to please the little fella. I give in, my bread is what you might call a holy terror. Ain't it the caution how I can't ever make bread fit to be eat, the best I can do? An' yet, I can't quit tryin'. You see, home-made bread, if it's good, is cheaper than store. Perhaps some day I'll be hittin' it right, so's when you ask me for bread I won't be givin' you a stone."

She broke off abruptly, gazed a moment at her husband, then stepped to his side, and put a floury hand on his shoulder. "Say, Sam, what you lookin' so for? You ain't lost your sand just because they fired you? What's come to you, lad? Tell Martha."

For a second there was no sound in the room, then the man looked up, gulped, choked down a mighty sob, and laid his head against her breast.

"Martha—there's somethin' wrong with my lung. That's why they thrown me down. They had their doctor from the main office examine me—they'd noticed me coughin'—and he said I'd a spot on my lung or—something. I shouldn't stay here in the city, he said. I must go up in the mountains, away from this, where there's the good air and a chance for my lung to heal, otherwise—"

Martha stroked the damp hair away from his temples with her powdery hand.

"Well, well!" she said reflectively. "Now, what do you think o' that!"

"O, Martha—I can't stand it! You an' the children! It's more than I can bear!"

Mrs. Slawson gave the head against her breast a final pat that, to another than her husband, might have felt like a blow.

"More'n you can bear? Don't flatter yourself, Sammy my lad! Not by no means it ain't. I wouldn't like to have to stand up to all I could ackchelly bear. It's God, not us, knows how much we can stand, an' when He gets in the good licks on us, He always leaves us with a little stren'th to spare—to last over for the next time. Now, I'm not a bit broke down by what you've told me. I s'pose you thought you'd have me sobbin' on your shoulder—to give you a chanct to play up, an' do the strong-husband act, comfortin' his little tremblin' wife. Well, my lad, if you ain't got on to it by now, that I'm no little, tremblin' wife, you never will. Those kind has nerves. I only got nerve. That's where I'm singular, see? A joke, Sammy! I made it up myself. Out of my own head, just now. But to go back to what I was sayin'—why should I sob on your shoulder? There ain't no reason for't. In the first place, even if you have got a spot on your lung, what's a spot! It ain't the whole lung! An' one lung ain't both lungs, an' there you are! As I make it out, even grantin' the worst, you're a lung-an'-then-some to the good, so where's the use gettin' blue? There's always a way out, somehow. If we can't do one way, we'll do another. Now you just cheer up, an' don't let Ma an' the childern see you kinder got a knock-outer in the solar plexus, like Jeffries, an' before you know it, there'll be a suddent turn, an' we'll be atop o' our worries, 'stead o' their bein' atop o' us. See! Say, just you cast your eye on them loaves! Ain't they grand? Appearances may be deceitful, but if I do say it as shouldn't, my bread certainly looks elegant this time. Now, Sammy, get busy like a good fella! Go in an' amuse Francie. The poor child is perishin' for somethin' to distrack her. What with Cora an' Sammy at school, an' Miss Claire havin' the Shermans so bewitched, they keep her there all day, an' lucky for us if they leave her come home nights at all, the house is too still for a sick person. Give Francie a drink o' Hygee water to cool her lips, an' tell her a yarn-like. An', Sammy, I wisht you'd be good to yourself, an' have a shave. Them prickles o' beard reminds me o' the insides o' Mrs. Sherman's big music-box. I wonder what tune you'd play if I run your chin in. Go on, now, an' attend to Francie, like I told you to. She needs to have her mind took off'n herself."

When he was gone, Martha set her loaves aside under cover to rise, never pausing a moment to take breath, before giving the kitchen a "scrub-down" that left no corner or cranny harboring a particle of dust. It was twilight when she finished, and "time to turn to an' get the dinner."

Cora and Sammy had long since returned from school. Sammy had gone out again to play, and had just come back to find his mother taking her bread-pans from the oven. She regarded them with doleful gaze.

"I fairly broke my own record this time for a bum bread-maker!" she muttered beneath her breath. "This batch is the worst yet."

"Say—mother!" said Sammy.

"Well?"

"Say, mother, may I have a slice of bread? I'm awfully hungry."

"Shoor you may! This here's just fresh from the oven, an' it has currants in it."

"Say, mother, a feller I play with, Joe Eagan, his mother's hands ain't clean. Would you think he'd like to eat the bread she makes?"

"Can she make good bread?"

"I dunno. She give me a piece oncet, but I couldn't eat it, 'count o' seein' her fingers. I'm glad your hands are so clean, mother. Say, this bread tastes awful good!"

Martha chuckled. "Well, I'm glad you like it. It might be worse, if I do say it! Only," she added to herself, "it'd have a tough time managin' it."

"Say, mother, may I have another slice with butter on, an' sugar sprinkled on top, like this is, to give it to Joe Eagan? He's downstairs. I want to show him how my mother can make the boss bread!"

"Certainly," said Martha heartily. "By all means, give Joe Eagan a slice. I like to see you thoughtful an' generous, my son. Willin' to share your good things with your friends," and as Sammy bounded out, clutching his treasures, she winked solemnly across at her husband, who had just re-entered.

"Now do you know what'll happen?" she inquired. "Sammy'll always have the notion I make the best bread ever. An' when he grows up an' marries, if his wife is a chef-cook straight out of the toniest kitchen in town, at fifty dollars a month, he'll tell her she ain't a patch on me. An' he'll say to her: 'Susan, or whatever-her-name-is, them biscuits is all right in their way, but I wisht I had a mouthful o' bread like mother used to make.' An' the poor creature'll wear the life out o' her, tryin' to please'm, an' reach my top-notch, an' never succeed, an' all the time—Say, Sammy, gather up the rest o' the stuff, like a good fella, an' shove it onto the dumb-waiter, so's it can go down with the sw—There's the whistle now! That's him callin' for the garbage."



CHAPTER XIII

"Hullo, Martha!" said Radcliffe.

Mrs. Slawson bowed profoundly. "Hullo yourself! I ain't had the pleasure of meetin' you for quite some time past, an' yet I notice my absents ain't made no serious alteration for the worst in your appearance. You ain't fell away none, on account of my not bein' here."

"Fell away from what?" asked Radcliffe.

"Fell away from nothin'. That's what they call a figger o' speech. Means you ain't got thin."

"Well, you've got thin, haven't you, Martha? I don't 'member your cheeks had those two long lines in 'em before."

"Lines?" repeated Martha, regarding herself in the mirror of an etagere she was polishing. "Them ain't lines. Them's dimples."

Radcliffe scrutinized her critically for a moment. "They're not like Miss Lang's dimples," he observed at last. "Miss Lang's dimples look like when you blow in your milk to cool it—they're there, an' then they ain't there. She vanishes 'em in, an' she vanishes 'em out, but those lines in your face, they just stay. Only they weren't there before, when you were here."

"The secret is, my dimples is the kind that takes longer to vanish 'em out when you once vanished 'em in. Mine's way-train dimples. Miss Lang's is express. But you can take it from me, dimples is faskinatin', whatever specie they are."

"What's faskinatin'?"

"It's the thing in some things that, when it ain't in other things, you don't care a thing about 'em."

"Are you faskinatin'?"

"That's not for me to say," said Martha, feigning coyness. "But this much I will confess, that some folks which shall be nameless, considers me so. An' they'd oughter know."

"Is Miss Lang faskinatin'?"

"Ask your Uncle Frank."

"Why must I ask him?"

"If you wanter know."

"Does he know?"

"Prob'ly. He's a very well-informed gen'l-man on most subjecks."

"I do' want to ask my Uncle Frank anything about Miss Lang. Once I asked him somethin' about her, an' he didn't like it."

"What'd you ask him?"

"I asked him if she wasn't his best girl."

"What'd he say?"

"He said 'No!' quick, just like that—'No!' I guess he was cross with me, an' I know he didn't like it. When I asked my mother why he didn't like it, she said because Miss Lang's only my governess. An' when I told Miss Lang what my mother, she told me, Miss Lang, she didn't like it either."

"Now, what do you think o' that?" ejaculated Martha. "Nobody didn't seem to like nothin' in that combination, did they? You was the only one in the whole outfit that showed any tack."

"What means that—tack?"

"It's a little thing that you use when you want to keep things in place—keep 'em from fallin' down. There's two kinds. One you must hammer in, an' the other you mustn't."

"I wisht Miss Lang was my Uncle Frank's best girl. But I guess she's somebody else's."

"Eh?" said Martha sharply, sitting back on her heels and twisting her polishing-cloth into a rope, as if she were wringing it out. "Now, whose best girl do you think she is, if I may make so bold?"

Radcliffe settled down to business.

"Yesterday Miss Lang an' me was comin' home from the Tippydrome, an' my mother she had comp'ny in the drawin'-room. An' I didn't know there was comp'ny first-off, coz Shaw he didn't tell us, an' I guess I talked kinder loud in the hall, an' my mother she heard me, an' she wasn't cross or anythin', she just called to me to come along in, an' see the comp'ny. An' I said, 'No, I won't! Not less Miss Lang comes too.' An' my mother, she said, 'Miss Lang, come too.' An' Miss Lang, she didn't wanter, but she hadter. An' the comp'ny was a gen'l'man an' a lady, an' the minit the gen'l'man, he saw Miss Lang, he jumped up outer his chair like a jumpin'-jack, an' his eyes got all kinder sparkly, an' he held out both of his hands to her, an' sorter shook her hands, till you'd think he'd shake 'em off. An' my mother, she said, 'I see you an' Miss Lang are already 'quainted, Mr. Van Brandt.' An' he laughed a lot, the way you do when you're just tickled to death, an' he said, ''Quainted? Well, I should say so! Miss Lang an' I are old, old friends!' An' he kep' lookin' at her, an' lookin' at her, the way you feel when there's somethin' on the table you like, an' you're fearful 'fraid it will be gone before it's passed to you. An' my mother she said to the other comp'ny, 'Miss Pelham, this is Radcliffe.' An' Miss Pelham, she was lookin' sideways at Miss Lang an' Mr. What's-his-name, but she pertended she was lookin' at me, an' she said (she's a Smarty-Smarty-gave-a-party, Miss Pelham is), she said, 'Radcliffe, Radcliffe? I wonder if you're any relation to Radcliffe College?' An' I said, 'No. I wonder if you are any relation to Pelham Manor?' An' while they was laughin', an' my mother she was tellin' how percoshus I am, my Uncle Frank he came in. He came in kinder quiet, like he always does, an' he stood in the door, an' Mr. What's-his-name was talkin' to Miss Lang so fast, an' lookin' at her so hard, they didn't neither of 'em notice. An' when my Uncle Frank, he noticed they didn't notice, coz they was havin' such fun by themselves, he put his mouth together like this—like when your tooth hurts, an' you bite on it to make it hurt some more, an' then he talked a lot to Miss Pelham, an' didn't smile pleasant an' happy at Mr. What's-his-name an' Miss Lang, when my mother, she interdooced 'em. An' soon Miss Lang, she took me upstairs an' she didn't look near so tickled to death as Mr. Van Brandt, he looked. An' when I asked her if she wasn't, she said: 'O' course I am. Mr. Van Brandt was a friend o' mine when I was a little girl. An' when you're a stranger in a strange land, anybody you knew when you was at home seems dear to you.' But she didn't look near so pleased as he did. She looked more like my Uncle Frank, he did before he got talkin' so much to Miss Pelham. An' now I guess the way of it is, Miss Pelham's my Uncle Frank's best girl an' Miss Lang's Mr. What's-his-name's."

"Well, now! Who'd believed you could 'a' seen so much? Why, you're a reg'ler Old Sleuth the Detective, or Sherlock Holmes, or somebody like that, for discoverin' things, ain't you?"

"I don't want Miss Pelham to be my Uncle Frank's best girl, an' I don't see why that other man he don't have her for his, like she was first-off, an' leave my Miss Lang alone."

"It all is certainly very dark an' mysterious," said Mrs. Slawson, shaking her head. "You don't know where you're at, at all. Like when you wake up in the black night, an' hear the clock give one strike. You couldn't tell, if your life hung in the ballast, if it's half-past twelve, or one, or half-past."

Radcliffe pondered this for a space, but was evidently unable to fathom its depth, for presently he let it go with a sigh, and swung off to another topic.

"Say, do you know our cook, 'Liza—the one we uster have—has gone away?"

"So I gathered from not havin' saw her fairy-figger hoverin' round the kitchen as I come in, an' meetin' another lady in her place—name of Augusta, Beetrice said."

"Yes, sir! Augusta's the new one. I guess Augusta don't drink."

"Which, you are suggesting 'Liza does?"

"Well, my mother, she don't know I know, but I do. I heard Shaw tellin' 'bout it. It was 'Liza's day out, an' she went an' got 'toxicated, an' a p'liceman he took her up, an' nex' mornin' my Uncle Frank, they sent to him out of the station-house to have him bail her out."

"My, my! She was as full as that?"

"What's bail her out?" inquired Radcliffe.

Mrs. Slawson considered. "When a boat gets full of water, because o' leakin' sides or heavy rains or shippin' seas, or whatever they calls it, you bail her out with a tin can or a sponge or anythin' you have by you."

"Was Liza full of water?"

"I was describin' boats," said Martha. "An' talkin' o' boats, did I tell you we got a new kitten to our house? He's a gray Maltee. His name is Nixcomeraus."

"Why is his name Nix—why is his name that?"

"Nixcomeraus? His name's Nixcomeraus because he's from the Dutchman's house. If you listen good, you'll see that's poetry—

"'Nixcomeraus from the Dutchman's house!'

"I didn't make it up, but it's poetry all the same. A Dutchman gen'l'man who lives nex' door to me, made him a present to our fam'ly."

"Do you like him?"

"The Dutchman gen'l'man?"

"No, the—the Nix—the cat?"

"Certaintly we like him. He's a decent, self-respectin' little fella that 'tends to his own business, an' keeps good hours. An' you'd oughter see how grand him an' Flicker gets along! Talk o' a cat-and-dog existence! Why, if all the married parties I know, not to speak o' some others that ain't, hit it off as good as Flicker an' Nixcomeraus, there wouldn't be no occasion for so many ladies takin' the rest-cure at Reno."

"What's Reno?"

"Reno? Why, Reno's short for merino. Like I'd say, Nix for Nixcomeraus, which is a kinder woolen goods you make dresses out of. There! Did you hear the schoolroom bell? I thought I heard it ringin' a while ago, but I wasn't sure. Hurry now, an' don't keep Miss Lang waitin'. She wants you to come straight along up, so's she can learn you to be a big an' handsome gen'l'man like your Uncle Frank."

When Radcliffe had left her, Martha went over in her mind the items he had guilelessly contributed to her general fund of information. Take it all in all, she was not displeased with what they seemed to indicate.

"Confidence is a good thing to have, but a little wholesome doubt don't hurt the masculine gender none. I guess, if I was put to it, I could count on one hand with no fingers, the number o' gen'l'men, no matter how plain, have died because 'way down in their hearts they believed they wasn't reel A-1 Winners. That's one thing it takes a lot o' hard usage to convince the sect of. They may feel they ain't gettin' their doos, that they're misunderstood, an' bein' sold below cost. But that they're ackchelly shopworn, or what's called 'seconds,' or put on the As Is counter because they're cracked, or broke, or otherwise slightly disfigured, but still in the ring—why, that never seems to percolate through their brains, like those coffee-pots they use nowadays, that don't make no better coffee than the old kind, if you know how to do it good, in the first place.

"On the other hand, ladies is dretful tryin'! They act like they're the discoverers of perpetchal emotion, an' is on the job demonstratin'. You can't count on 'em for one minit to the next, which they certaintly was never born to be aromatic cash-registers. An' p'raps that's the reason, bein' natchelly so poor at figgers, they got to rely to such a extent on corsets. I'm all for women myself. I believe they're the comin' man, but I must confess, if I'm to speak the truth, it ain't for the simple, uninfected, childlike mind o' the male persuasion to foller their figaries, unless he's some of a trained acrobat.