“I’ll never leave her!  No; I won’t.  I telled her so, and said I could not think how she could find in her heart to give me warning.  I could not have had the face to do it, if I’d been her.  I might ha’ been just as good for nothing as Mrs Fitz-Adam’s Rosy, who struck for wages after living seven years and a half in one place.  I said I was not one to go and serve Mammon at that rate; that I knew when I’d got a good missus, if she didn’t know when she’d got a good servant” —

“But, Martha,” said I, cutting in while she wiped her eyes.

“Don’t, ‘but Martha’ me,” she replied to my deprecatory tone.

“Listen to reason” —

“I’ll not listen to reason,” she said, now in full possession of her voice, which had been rather choked with sobbing.  “Reason always means what someone else has got to say.  Now I think what I’ve got to say is good enough reason; but reason or not, I’ll say it, and I’ll stick to it.  I’ve money in the Savings Bank, and I’ve a good stock of clothes, and I’m not going to leave Miss Matty.  No, not if she gives me warning every hour in the day!”

She put her arms akimbo, as much as to say she defied me; and, indeed, I could hardly tell how to begin to remonstrate with her, so much did I feel that Miss Matty, in her increasing infirmity, needed the attendance of this kind and faithful woman.

“Well”—­said I at last.

“I’m thankful you begin with ‘well!’ If you’d have begun with ‘but,’ as you did afore, I’d not ha’ listened to you.  Now you may go on.”

“I know you would be a great loss to Miss Matty, Martha” —

“I telled her so.  A loss she’d never cease to be sorry for,” broke in Martha triumphantly.

“Still, she will have so little—­so very little—­to live upon, that I don’t see just now how she could find you food—­she will even be pressed for her own.  I tell you this, Martha, because I feel you are like a friend to dear Miss Matty, but you know she might not like to have it spoken about.”

Apparently this was even a blacker view of the subject than Miss Matty had presented to her, for Martha just sat down on the first chair that came to hand, and cried out loud (we had been standing in the kitchen).

At last she put her apron down, and looking me earnestly in the face, asked, “Was that the reason Miss Matty wouldn’t order a pudding to-day?  She said she had no great fancy for sweet things, and you and she would just have a mutton chop.  But I’ll be up to her.  Never you tell, but I’ll make her a pudding, and a pudding she’ll like, too, and I’ll pay for it myself; so mind you see she eats it.  Many a one has been comforted in their sorrow by seeing a good dish come upon the table.”

I was rather glad that Martha’s energy had taken the immediate and practical direction of pudding-making, for it staved off the quarrelsome discussion as to whether she should or should not leave Miss Matty’s service.  She began to tie on a clean apron, and otherwise prepare herself for going to the shop for the butter, eggs, and what else she might require.  She would not use a scrap of the articles already in the house for her cookery, but went to an old tea-pot in which her private store of money was deposited, and took out what she wanted.