Still Mrs. Slawson did not stir.

“I suppose you think you’re a lady,” she observed without the faintest suggestion of heat.  “I suppose you think you’re a lady, but you certainly ain’t workin’ at it now.  What takes my time, though, is the way you ackchelly seem to be meanin’ what you say!  Why, I wouldn’t turn a dog out a night like this, an’ you’d let a delicate young girl go into the drivin’ storm, a stranger, without a place to lay her head—­that is, for all you know.  I could bet my life, without knowin’ a thing about it, that the good Lord never let you have a daughter of your own.  He wouldn’t trust the keepin’ of a child’s body, not to speak of her soul, to such as you.  That is, He wouldn’t if He could help Himself.  But, thanks be!  Miss Lang ain’t dependent.  She’s well an’ able to pay all she owes.  Supposin’ she has been kinder strapped for a little while back, an’ had to economize by comin’ to such a place as this!  I’ve knowed others, compelled to economize with three trunks alongside a hall-bedroom wall, for a while, too, an’ by an’ by their circumstances was such that they had money to burn.  It’s not for the likes of Miss Lang to try to transack business with your sort.  It would soil her lips to bandy words, so I, an old fam’ly servant, an’ proud of it! am settlin’ up her affairs for her.  Be kind enough to say how much it is you are ready to sell your claim to Christian charity for?  How much is it you ain’t willin’ to lend to the Lord on Miss Lang’s account?” She plucked up her skirts, thrust her hand, unembarrassed, into her stocking-leg, and brought forth from that safe depository a roll of well-worn greenbacks.

Mrs. Daggett named the amount of Claire’s indebtedness, and Martha Slawson proceeded to count it out in slow, deliberate syllables.  She did not, however, surrender the bills at once.

“I’ll take a receipt,” she quietly observed, and then sat back with an air of perfect imperturbability, while the boarding-house keeper nervously fussed about, searching for a scrap of paper, hunting for a pen, trying to unearth, from the most impossible hiding-places, a bottle of ink, her indignation at Martha’s cheek escaping her in audible mumblings.

“Impudence!  What right have you to come here, holding me to account?  I’ve my own way of doing good—­”

Mrs. Slawson shrugged.  “Your own way?  I warrant you have!  Nobody else’d recognize it.  I’d like to bet, you don’t give a penny to charity oncet in five years.  Come now, do you?”

“God doesn’t take into account the amount one gives,” announced Mrs. Daggett authoritatively.

“P’raps not, but you can take it from me, He keeps a pretty close watch on what we have left—­or I miss my guess.  An’ now, Miss Claire darlin’, if you’ll go an’ get what belongin’s you have, that this generous lady ain’t stripped off’n you, to hold for security, as she calls it, we’ll be goin’.  An expressman will be ’round here the first thing in the mornin’ for Miss Lang’s trunk, an’ it’s up to you, Mrs. Daggett, to see it’s ready for’m when he comes.  Good-night to you, ma’am, an’ I wish you luck.”