When Martha let herself into her flat that night, she was welcomed by another beside Flicker.
"You naughty Martha!" whispered Claire. "What do you mean by coming home so late, all tired out and worked to death! It is shameful! But here's a good cup of hot chocolate, and some big plummy buns to cheer you up. And I've got some good news for you besides. I didn't mean to tell right off, but I just can't keep in for another minute. I've got a job! A fine, three-hundred-dollars-a-year-and-home-and-laundry job! And a raise, as soon as I show I'm worth it! Now, what do you think of that? Isn't it splendid? Isn't it—bully?"
She had noiselessly guided Martha into her own room, got her things off, and seated her in a comfortable Morris chair before the lighted oil-stove, from whose pierced iron top a golden light gleamed cheerily, reflecting on the ceiling above in a curious pattern.
"Be careful of the chocolate, it's burning hot. I kept it simmering till I heard you shut the vestibule door. And—O, yes! No danger in sipping it that way! But you haven't asked a single thing about my job. How I came to know of it in the first place, and how I was clever enough to get it after I'd applied! You don't look a bit pleased and excited over it, you bad Martha! And you ought to be so glad, because I won't need to spend anything like all the money I'll get. I'm to have my home and laundry free, and one can't make many outside expenses in a boarding-school 'way off in Schoharie—and so I can send you a lot and a lot of dollars, till we're all squared up and smoothed out, and you won't have to work so hard any more, and—"
"Say now, Miss Claire, you certaintly are the fastest thing on record. If you'd been born a train, you'd been an express, shoor-pop an' no mistake. Didn't I tell you to hold on, pationate an' uncomplainin', till I giv' you the sign? Didn't I say I had my eye on a job for you that was a job worth talkin' about? One that'd be satisfactry all around. Well, then! An' here you are, tellin' me about you goin' to the old Harry, or some such, with home an' laundry thrown in. Not on your life you ain't, Miss Claire, an' that (beggin' your pardon!) is all there is to it!"
"But, Martha—"
"Don't let's waste no more words. The thing ain't to be thought of."
"But, Martha, it's over two weeks since you said that, about having an idea about a certain job for me that was going to be so splendid. Don't you know it is? And I thought it had fallen through. I didn't like to speak about it, for fear you'd think I was hurrying you, but two weeks are two weeks, and I can't go on indefinitely staying here, and getting so deep in debt I'll never be able to get out again. And I saw this advertisement in The Outlook. 'Twas for a college graduate to teach High School English in a girls' boarding-school, and I went to the agency, and they were very nice, and told me to write to the Principal, and I did—told her all about myself, my experience tutoring, and all that, and this morning came the letter saying she'd engage me. I can tell you all about Schoharie, Martha. It's 'up-state' and—"
"Miss Claire, child, no! It won't do. I can't consent. I can't have you throwin' away golden opportoonities to work like a toojan for them as'll stint you in the wash, an' prob'ly give you oleo-margerine instead of butter, an' cold-storage eggs that had forgot there was such a thing as a hen, long before they ever was laid away. I wasn't born yesterday, myself, an' I know how they treat the teachers in some o' them schools. The young-lady scholars, so stylish an' rich, as full of airs as a music-box, snubbin' the teacher because they're too ignorant to know how smart she has to be, to get any knowledge into their stupid heads, an' the Principal always eyein' you like a minx, 'less you might be wastin' her precious time an' not earnin' the elegant sal'ry she gives you, includin' your home an' laundry. O my! I know a thing or two about them schools, an' a few other places. No, Miss Claire, dear, it won't do. An' besides, I have you bespoke for Mrs. Sherman. The last thing before I come away from the house this night, she sent for me upstairs, an' ast me didn't I know some one could engage with her for Radcliffe—to learn him his lessons, an' how to be a little lady, an' suchlike. She wants, as you might say, a trained mother for'm, while his own untrained one is out gallivantin' the streets, shoppin', an' playin' bridge, an' attendin' the horse-show.
"I hemmed an' hawed an' scratched my head to see if, happen, I did know anybody suitable, an' after a while (not to seem to make you too cheap, or not to look like I was jumpin' down her throat) I told her: 'Curious enough, I do know just the one I think will please you—if you can get her.'