CHAPTER VI
The next morning Eliza met her at the area-gate, showing a face of ominous sympathy, wagging a doleful head.
"What'd I tell you?" she exclaimed before she had even unlatched the spring-lock. "That young villyan has a head on him old enough to be his father's, if so be he ever had one. He's deep as a well. He didn't tell his mother on ye yesterday mornin', but he done worse—the little fox! He told his uncle Frank when he got home last night. Leastways, Mr. Shaw got a message late in the evenin' from upstairs, which was, to tell Mrs. Slawson, Mr. Ronald wanted to see her after his breakfast this mornin', an' be sure she didn't forget."
Mrs. Slawson received the news with a smile as of such actual welcome, that Eliza, who flattered herself she knew a thing or two about human nature, was rather upset in her calculations.
"You look like you relish bein' bounced," she observed tartly.
"Well, if I'm goin' to get my walkin'-papers, I'd rather get 'em from
Mr. Frank than from anybody else. There's never any great loss without
some small gain. At least, if Mr. Frank is dischargin' me, he's noticin'
I'm alive, an' that's somethin' to be thankful for."
"That's as you look at it!" snapped Eliza. "Mr. Frank is all right enough, but I must say I'd rather keep my place than have even him kick me out. An' you look as if his sendin' for you was to say you'd come in for a fortune."
"P'raps it is," said Martha. "You never can tell."
"Well, if I was makin' tracks for fortunes, I wouldn't start in on Mr.
Frank Ronald," Eliza observed cuttingly.
"Which might be exackly where you'd slip up on it," Martha returned with a bland smile.