"Now, my dear, there ain't goin' to be nothin' for you to do but just sit tight," she vouchsafed reassuringly. "Don't you start to butt in (if you'll pardon the liberty), no matter what I say. I'm goin' to be a perfect lady, never fear. I know my place, an' I know my dooty, an' if your boardin'-house lady knows hers, there'll be no trouble whatsomedever, so dontcher worry." She descended the three steps leading from the street-level down into the little paved courtyard below, and rang the basement bell. A moment and an inner door was unlocked, flung open, and a voice from just within the grating of the closed iron area-gate asked curtly, "Well, what's wanted?" "Is this Mrs.----? I should say, is this the lady of the house?" Martha Slawson's voice was deep, bland, prepossessing. "I'm Mrs. Daggett, yes, if that's what you mean." "That's what I mean. My name's Slawson. Mrs. Sammy Slawson, an' I come to see you on a little matter of business connected with a young lady who's been lodgin' in your house--Miss Lang." Mrs. Daggett stepped forward, and unlatched the iron gate. "Come in," she said, in a changed voice, endeavoring to infuse into her acrid manner the grace of a belated hospitality. Claire, completely hidden from view behind Martha Slawson's heroic proportions, followed in her wake like a wee, foreshortened shadow as, at Mrs. Daggett's invitation, Mrs. Slawson passed through the area gateway into the malodorous basement hall, and so to the dingy dining-room beyond. Here a group of grimy-clothed tables seemed to have alighted in sudden confusion, reminding one of a flock of pigeons huddled together in fear of the vultures soon to descend on them with greedy, all-devouring appetites. "We can just as well talk here as anywhere," announced Mrs. Daggett. "It's quarter of an hour before dinnertime, but if you'd rather go up to the parlor we can." "O, dear, no!" said Martha Slawson suavely. "_Any_ place is good enough for me. Don't trouble yourself. I'm not particular _where_ I am." Unbidden, she drew out a chair from its place beside one of the uninviting tables, and sat down on it deliberately. It creaked beneath her weight. "O--oh! Miss Lang!" said Mrs. Daggett, surprised, seeing her young lodger now, for the first time. Martha nodded. "Yes, it's Miss Lang, an' I brought her with me, through the turrbl storm, Mrs.--a--?" "Daggett," supplied the owner of the name promptly. "That's right, Daggett," repeated Martha. "I brought Miss Lang with me, Mrs. Daggett, because I couldn't believe my ears when she told me she was goin' to be--to be _turned out_, if she didn't pay up to-night, _weather_ or no. I wanted to hear the real truth of it from you, ma'am, straight, with her by." Mrs. Daggett coughed. "Well, business is business. I'm not a capitalist. I'm not keeping a boarding-house for my health, you know. I can't afford to give credit when I have to pay cash."