“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.