Mrs. Shields intervened on the side of peace and propriety. “Now, now, don’t you kids get to scrapping. You go ahead and have your funeral, and play nice and pretty. First thing you know you’ll have Mommer out here, scairt to death for fear some of you has got their neck broke, hollerin’ like that.” “Aw, she won’t hear, she never does,” growled Thomas junior. And in fact, the voice and piano, now sweetly rilling arpeggios throughout all the keys in ardent practice, kept on undisturbed. Mrs. Shields retreated, joining Miss Martha with confidences uttered in a voice of polite caution. “I expect them young ones are right nice-looking when they’re washed up. They’re all right, only I don’t know as I’m keen for ’em to come over on my side of the fence. Of course, Mrs. Rev’rend, she’s used to the racket and muss.” She asked whether she was to pay in advance, briskly announcing that she would while Miss Martha was still hanging in timorous indecision. The maiden lady moved in a haze of doubt and awe in what she considered the business world; out-of-hand offers to pay rent in advance might be one of its pitfalls for what Miss Martha knew. But in due time the check arrived, and though intrinsically an unhandsome document executed in weak, loosely flowing figures and handwriting with the signature “Tillie Shields” sidling downhill into the corner, it was negotiable like any other check. Eighty-five dollars! The dream had come true! Miss Martha was thriftily resolved not to spend it this first time, but it gave her a solid foundation on which to erect more dreams. Moreover, she took an almost equally solid satisfaction in replying coolly and competently to all inquirers, yes, the house was rented; yes, very advantageously, thank you! Hitherto she had had to endure their discouraging sympathy; and now detected, in spite of the felicitations, the great fundamental truth that nobody is really glad when somebody else gets a house rented! Eliza Seabury was the one exception; Eliza was too blunt-minded and blunt-spoken for civil pretenses. She rushed up on the street one day, and opened the subject, or in a manner of speaking, committed assault and battery on it with: “Martha Wilcox, where on earth did you pick up that weird woman you’ve got in your house?” “I didn’t pick her up at all. She saw the advertisement,” said Miss Martha, a trifle stiffly. “Well, she’s positively _weird_. I saw her the other day, and when somebody said she was in your house I nearly passed away. Her clothes! And those eyes rolling around like two buckeyes in a pan of milk! It’s simply _weird_! Who is she, anyhow, and where did she come from?” “She’s a Mrs. Matilda Shields,” said Miss Martha, sagely correcting that too informal “Tillie.” “I don’t know where her home was originally. I understood she’d travelled about a good deal.” “Mercy, Martha, I hope you didn’t take her without a reference. It would be awful if she didn’t pay you.”