Mrs. Sherman took up the book she had dropped at Martha's entrance.

"You certainly are a character," she observed.

"Thank you, 'm," said Martha.

"O, and by the way, before you go--I want you to see that Mr. Ronald's rooms are put in perfect order to-day. I don't care to trust it to the girls, but you can have one of them to help you, if you like, provided you are sure to oversee her. You know how particular I am about my brother Frank's rooms. Be sure nothing is neglected."

"Yes'm," said Martha.

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.

And yet, in reality, she was by no means so composed as she appeared.

She felt as might one who, moved by a great purpose, had rashly usurped the prerogative of fate and set in motion mighty forces that, if they did not make for success, might easily make for disaster. She had very definitely stuck her thumb into somebody else's pie, and if her laudable intention was to draw forth a plum, not for herself but for the other, why, that was no proof that, in the end, she might not get smartly scorched for her pains.

When the summons to the dining-room actually came, Martha felt such an unsubstantiality in the region of her knee-joints, that for a moment she almost believed the bones had turned into breadcrumbs. Then energetically she shook herself into shape, spurning her momentary weakness from her, with an almost visible gesture, and marched forward to meet what awaited her.

Shaw had removed the breakfast dishes from the table beside which "Lord Ronald" sat alone. It was all very imposing, the place, the particular purpose for which she had been summoned, and which was, as yet, unrevealed to her, the _person_, most of all.

Martha thought that perhaps she had been a little hard on Cora, "the time she give her the tongue-lashin' for stumblin' over the first lines of her piece, that evenin' of the Sund'-School ent'tainment. It wasn't so dead easy as a body might think, to stand up to a whole churchful o'

people, or even one person, when he was the kind that's as good (or as bad) as a whole churchful."

Martha could see her now, as she stood then, announcing to the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude in a high, unmodulated treble:

_"It was the t-time when l-lilies bub-blow"_

"an' her stockin' fixin' to come down any min'ute!"

"Ah, Martha, good-morning!"

At the first sound of his voice Mrs. Slawson recovered her poise. That _wouldn't-call-the-queen-your-cousin_ feeling came over her again, and she was ready to face the music, whatever tune it might play. So susceptible is the foolish spirit of mortal to those subtle, impalpable influences of atmosphere that we try to describe, in terms of inexact science, as personality, vibration, aura, magnetism.

"I asked to see you, Martha, because Radcliffe tells me--"

Martha's heart sank within her. So it was Radcliffe and the _grand bounce_ after all, and not--Well, it was a pity! After all her thinkin'

it out, an' connivin', an' contrivin', to have nothin' come of it! To be sent off before she had time to see the thing through!

"Radcliffe tells me," continued the clear, mellow voice, penetrating the mist of her meditations, "that you own a very rare, a very unusual breed of dog. I couldn't make out much from Radcliffe's description, but apparently the dog is a pedigree animal."

Mrs. Slawson's shoulders, in her sudden revulsion of feeling, shook with soundless mirth.

"Pedigree animal!" she repeated. "Certaintly! Shoor, he's a pedigree animal. He's had auntsisters as far back as any other dog, an' that's a fack. What's the way they put it? 'Out of' the gutter, 'sired by'

Kicks. You never see a little yeller, mongol, cur-dog, sir, that's yellerer or cur-er than him. I'd bet my life his line ain't never been crossed by anythin' different, since the first pup o' them all set out to run his legs off tryin' to get rid o' the tin-can tied to his tail.

But Flicker's a winner, for all that, an' he's goin' to keep my boy Sammy in order, better'n I could ever do it. You see, I just has to hint to Sammy that if he ain't proper-behaved I won't let Flicker 'sociate with'm, an' he's as good as pie. I wouldn't be without that dog, sir, now I got intimately acquainted with him, for--"

"That touches the question I was intending to raise," interposed Mr.

Ronald. "You managed to get Radcliffe's imagination considerably stirred about Flicker, and the result is, he has asked me to see if I can't come to an understanding with you. He wants me to buy Flicker."

Martha's genial smile faded. "Why, goodness gracious, Lor--I _should_ say, _Mr._ Ronald, the poor little rascal, dog rather, ain't worth two cents. He's just a young flagrant pup, you wouldn't be bothered to notice, 'less you had the particular likin' for such things we got."

"Radcliffe wants Flicker. I'll give you ten dollars for him."

"I--I couldn't take it, Mr. Ronald, sir. It wouldn't be fair to you!"

"Fifteen dollars."

"It ain't the money--"

"Twenty!"

"I--I can't!"

"Twenty-five dollars, Martha. Radcliffe's heart is set on the dog."

A quick observer, looking attentively at Mrs. Slawson's face, could have seen something like a faint quiver disturb the firm lines of her lips and chin for a moment. A flash, and it was gone.

"I'd _give_ you the dog, an' welcome, Mr. Ronald," she said presently, "but I just can't do it. The little feller, he never had a square deal before, an' because my husband an' the rest of us give it to him, he loves us to death, an' you'd think he'd bark his head off for joy when the raft o' them gets home after school. An' then, nights--(I ben workin' overtime lately, doin' outside jobs that bring me home late)--nights, when I come back, an' all in the place is abed an'

asleep, an' I let myself in, in the black an' the cold, the only livin'

creature to welcome me is Flicker. An' there he stands, up an' ready for me, the minute he hears my key in the lock, an' when I open the door, an' light the changelier (he don't dare let a bark out of'm, he knows better, the smart little fella!), there he stands, a-waggin' his stump of a tail like a Christian, an'--Mr. Ronald, sir--that wag ain't for sale!"

For a moment something akin in both held them silent. Then Mr. Ronald slowly inclined his head. "You are quite right, Martha. I understand your feeling."

Martha turned to go. She had, in fact, reached the door when she was recalled.