"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."