She took it from him with a smile of perfect good-fellowship, and passed from the room.  Once outside the threshold, with the door closed upon her, she drew a long, deep breath of relief.

“Well, I’m glad that’s over, an’ I got out of it with a whole skin,” she ruminated.  “Lord, but I thought he had me shoor, when he took me up about how the thing got out o’ me dress, with his gimlet eyes never stirrin’ from my face, an’ me tremblin’ like an ashpan.  If I hadn’t ‘a’ had my wits about me, I do’ know where I’d ‘a’ come out.  But all’s well that ends swell, as Miss Claire says, an’ bless her heart, it’s her as’ll end swell, if what I done this day takes root, an’ I believe it will.”

CHAPTER VII

When Martha let herself into her flat that night, she was welcomed by another beside Flicker.

“You naughty Martha!” whispered Claire.  “What do you mean by coming home so late, all tired out and worked to death!  It is shameful!  But here’s a good cup of hot chocolate, and some big plummy buns to cheer you up.  And I’ve got some good news for you besides.  I didn’t mean to tell right off, but I just can’t keep in for another minute. I’ve got a job! A fine, three-hundred-dollars-a-year-and-home-and-laundry job!  And a raise, as soon as I show I’m worth it!  Now, what do you think of that?  Isn’t it splendid?  Isn’t it—­bully?”

She had noiselessly guided Martha into her own room, got her things off, and seated her in a comfortable Morris chair before the lighted oil-stove, from whose pierced iron top a golden light gleamed cheerily, reflecting on the ceiling above in a curious pattern.

“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!”