"Do about it!" repeated Mrs. Slawson. "Why, there ain't nothin' to do about it, but let the good work go on. I'm in luck, if it's true what you say. Believe me, there's lots o' ladies in this town, is starvin' their stummicks an' everythin' else about 'em, an' payin' the doctors high besides, just to get delicate-complected, an' airy-fairy figgers, same's I'm doin' without turnin' a hand. Did you never hear o' bantin'? It's what the high-toned doctors recommend to thin down ladies who have it so comfortable they're uncomfortable. The doctors prescribes exercise for'm, an' they take it, willin' as doves, whereas if their husbands said, 'Say, old woman, while you're restin', just scrub down the cellar-stairs good—that'll take the flesh off'n you quicker'n anythin' else I know!' they'd get a divorce from him so quick you couldn't see 'em for dust. No, they'd not do anythin' so low as cellar-stairs, to save their lives. You couldn't please 'em better'n to see another woman down on her marra-bones workin' for 'em, but get down themselves? Not on your sweet life, they wouldn't. They'd rather bant. Bantin' sounds so much more stylisher than scrubbin'."
Claire smiled, but her eyes were very serious as she said, "All the same, Martha, I believe you are grieving your heart out for Sam. I've been watching you when you didn't know it, and I've seen the signs and the tokens. Your heart has the hunger-ache in it!"
"Now, what do you think o' that!" exclaimed Mrs. Slawson. "What do you know about hearts an' hunger-aches, I should like to know. You, an unmarried maiden-girl, without so much as the shadder or the skelegan of a beau, as far as I can see. What do you know about a woman hungerin' an' cravin' for her own man? You have to have reelly felt them things yourself, to know the signs of 'em in other folks."
Claire's lip trembled, but she did not reply.
When Martha spoke again it was as if she had replied.
"O, go 'way! You ain't never had a leanin' in any gen'l'man's direction, I'd be willin' to wager. An' yet, I may as well tell you, you been gettin' kinder white an' scrawny yourself lately, beggin' your pardon for bein' so bold as notice it. Mind, I ain't the faintest notion of holdin' it against you! I know better than think you been settin' your affections on anybody. There's other things besides love gives you that tired feelin'. What you need is somethin' to brace you up, an' clear your blood, like Hoodses Sassperilla. Everybody feels the way you do, this time o' year. I heard a young saleslady (she wasn't a woman, mind you, she was a sales_lady_), I heard a young saleslady in the car the other mornin' complain—she was the reel dressy kind, you know, with more'n a month's pay of hair, boilin' over on the back of her head in puffs an' things—the gallus sort that, if you want to buy a yard o' good flannen off her, will sass you up an' down to your face, as fresh as if she was your own daughter—she was complainin' 'the Spring always made her feel so sorter, kinder, so awful la-anguid.'"
"Martha, dear," broke in Claire irrelevantly, "I wonder if you'd mind very much if I told Mr. Ronald the truth. He thinks you were an old family servant. He thinks you nursed me till I was able to walk."
Martha considered. "Well, ain't that the truth?" she asked blandly. "I lived out from the time I was twelve years old. That was in Mrs. Granville's mother's house. When I was sixteen I went to Mrs. Granville's. I was kitchen-maid there first-off, an' gradjelly she promoted me till I was first housemaid. I never left her till I got married. If that don't make me an old family servant, I'd like to know."
"But he thinks you were an old family servant in our house."
"Well, bless your heart, that's his business, not mine. How can I help what he thinks?"