“Hush, hush, Primmie.  Ah—­control yourself, please.  You promised not to cry, you know.”

“Cry!  Well, ain’t I tryin’ not to cry, for mercy sakes?  She was cryin’, too, I tell you, afore she finished.  If you’d seen the pair of us settin’ there bellerin’ like a couple of young ones I cal’late you’d a thought so.”

“Bellowing?  Miss Phipps?”

“Oh, I don’t mean bellerin’ out loud like a—­like a heifer.  I guess likely I was doin’ that, but she wan’t.  She was just cryin’ quiet, you know, but anybody could see how terrible bad she was feelin’.  And then she said it—­oh, dear, dear!  How can I tell it?  How can I?”

Galusha groaned, in harassed desperation.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, “But I—­really I wish you would.”

Miss Phipps had, it seemed, told her maidservant that, owing to the steadily increasing cost of living, of food and clothes and every item of daily expense, she was finding it more and more hard to get along.  She said her income was very small and her bills continually growing larger.  She had cut and scrimped in every possible way, hoping against hope, but at last she had been driven to the point where even the small wage she was paying Primmie seemed more than she could afford.  Much as she hated to do it, she felt compelled to let the girl go.

“She said she’d help me get another place,” said Primmie, “and that I could stay here until I did get one, and all sorts of things like that.  I told her I didn’t want no other place and I didn’t care a bit about the wages.  I said I’d rather work here without a cent of wages.  She said no, she wouldn’t let me do that.  If she couldn’t pay me I couldn’t work here.  I said I could and I should and she said I couldn’t and shouldn’t.  And—­and we both cried and—­and that’s the way it ended.  And that’s why I come to you, Mr. Bangs.  I can’t go away and leave her.  I can’t, Mr. Bangs.  She can’t keep this whole house a-goin’ without somebody to help.  I’ve got to stay.  You make her keep me, Mr. Bangs.  I don’t want no pay for it.  I never was no hand to care for money, anyhow.  Pa used to say I wan’t.  None of our folks was.  Matter of that, we never had none to care for.  But you make her keep me, Mr. Bangs.”

She began to sob once more.  Poor Galusha was very much distressed.  The cause of Martha Phipps’ worry was plain enough now.  And her financial stress must be very keen indeed to cause her to take such drastic action as the discharge of Primmie the faithful.

“You’ll make her keep me, won’t you, Mr. Bangs?” pleaded Primmie, once more.

Galusha rubbed his chin.  “Dear me,” he said, perplexedly, “I—­ Well, I shall be glad to do all I can, of course, but how I can make her keep you when she has made up her mind not to, I—­really, I don’t see.  You don’t think, do you,” he added, “that my being here is in any way responsible for a portion of Miss Phipps’ financial trouble?  You don’t think it might be—­ah—­easier for her if I was to—­ah—­go?”