"No, no—please! Martha dear! It wasn't Cora! She's not to blame. I'd have known sooner or later anyway. I always reason things out for myself. Please promise not to scold Cora."
"Scold Cora? Not on your life, my dear; I won't scold Cora. I'm old-fashioned in my ways with childern. I don't believe in scoldin'. It spoils their tempers, but a good lickin' oncet in a while, helps 'em to remember, besides bein' good for the circulation."
Claire was ready to cry. "It's all my fault," she lamented. "I was clumsy. I was tactless. And now Cora will be punished for it, and—I make nothing but trouble for you all."
"There, there! For mercy sake, don't take on like that. I promise I'll let Cora go free, if you'll sit back quiet an' eat your dinner in peace. So now! That's better!"
"What I was going to say, Martha dear, is, I'm quite well and strong now, and I want to set about immediately looking for something to do. I ought to be able to support myself, you know, for I'm able-bodied, and not so stupid but that I managed to graduate from college. Once, two summers ago, I tutored—I taught a young girl who was studying to take the Wellesley entrance exams. And I coached her so well she went through without a condition, and she wasn't very quick, either. I wonder if I couldn't teach?"
"Shoor, you could!"
"If I could get a position to teach in some school or some family, I could, maybe, live here with you—rent this room—unless you have some other use for it."
"Lord, no! I call it the boarder's room because this flat is really too rich for my blood, but you see I don't want the childern brought up in a bad neighborhood with low companions. Well, Sammy argued the rent was too high, till I told'm we'd let a room an' make it up that way, but what with this, an' what with that, we ain't had any boarders exceptin' now an' then some friend of himself out of a job, or one o' the girls, livin' out in the houses where I work, gettin' bounced suddent, an' in want of a bed, an' none of 'em ever paid us a cent or was asked for it."
"Well, if I could get a position as teacher or governess, I'd soon be able to pay back what you've laid out for me, and more besides, and—In the houses where you work, are there any children who need a governess? Any young girls who need a tutor? That's what I wanted to ask you, Martha."
Mrs. Slawson deliberated in silence for a moment.