"Well, all I can say at present is this: I will think it over. You go home to your mother now, and tell her that her Bo-peep will be in as usual to tea; and you, little girl, may as well make yourself scarce at that hour. Here's a sovereign for you. Go and have a jolly time somewhere." "Oh, Mr. Martin, I"----began Maggie, her face crimson. "You had best not put on airs," said Martin; and Maggie slipped the sovereign into her pocket. When she reached her mother's lodgings she felt well assured that she had done the right thing. Hitherto she had been too stunned and miserable to use any of her power--that strange power which she possessed--on Mr. Martin. But she felt well assured that she could do so in the future. She had gauged his character correctly. He was hopelessly vulgar, but an absolutely good-natured and straight person. "He will do what I wish," she thought. Her uneasiness vanished as soon as the first shock of her mother's disclosure was over. She entered the house. "Why, missie?" said Tildy, "w'erehever 'ave you been? The breakfast's stony cold upstairs, and Mrs. 'Owland's cryin' like nothin' at all." "Thank you, Tildy; I'll see mother immediately," said Maggie. "And I don't want any breakfast, for I've had it already." "With the haristocracy?" asked Tildy in a low, awed kind of voice. "You always was one o' they, Miss Maggie." "No, not with the aristocracy," said Maggie, trying to suppress her feelings. "Tildy, your smut is on your left cheek this morning. You can remove the breakfast-things, and I'll go up to mother." Maggie ran upstairs. Mrs. Howland had eaten a little, very indifferent breakfast, and was looking weepy and washed-out as she sat in her faded dressing-gown near the open window. "Really, Maggie," she said when her daughter entered, "your ways frighten me most terribly! I do wish poor Mr. Martin would insist on your coming to live with us. I shall never have an easy moment with your queer pranks and goings-on." "I am sure you won't, dear mother," said Maggie. "But come, don't be cross with me. Here's Matilda; she'll clear away the breakfast-things in no time, and then I have something I want to say to you." "Oh dear! my head is so weak this morning," said Mrs. Howland. "If I were you, Miss Maggie," said Tildy as she swept the cups and saucers with noisy vehemence on to a tray, "I wouldn't worrit the poor mistress, and she just on the eve of a matrimonial venture. It's tryin' to the nerves, it is; so Mrs. Ross tells me. Says she, 'When I married Tom,' says she, 'I was on the twitter for a good month.' It's awful to think as your poor ma's so near the brink--for that's 'ow Mrs. Ross speaks o' matrimony." "Please be quick, Tildy, and go," said Maggie in a determined voice. Matilda cleared the table, but before she would take her departure she required definite instructions with regard to dinner, tea, and supper.