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 t