Emma began a fresh flower of speech upon the evils accruing to drink, but Martha nipped it relentlessly in the bud. “Get out, or I’ll sling you out!” she commanded coarsely, in the lingo of Lame Lane, and Emma, as if pushed, sidled sharply towards the door. There she paused again to throw a last glance round the room, viciously at the Chorus, jealously at Mrs. Clapham, and—finally—a strange, long, greedy look at the photographs of the children. For the last time she unfolded her arms and clasped them again. Then, “Ay, well, I reckon you know your own business best!” she remarked to the meeting in general, and, doing her best to fade as far as Martha Jane would allow, sidled towards the porch, and went balefully, stealthily out.... Martha Jane, with her head round the door, surveyed the last of her up the street. Then she turned to the company with a ribald wink. “I’d best be after her and see what she’s up to!” she observed, grinning. “She’s fit to set the street afire, she’s that wild!... I never thanked you for yon currant bread, Ann Clapham,” she added impudently, suddenly turning. “I was that mad when I see it first, I near flung it in t’ road; but if you’ve any more going begging, I’d be glad to take it along!” Nobody spoke in reply to this, and, looking round the disapproving faces—almost as disapproving as they had been for the late-departed—she flamed violently into wrath. “Ay, well, I’ll be saying good-evening then,”—she tossed her head on the threshold—“especially as I notice there’s no thanks going for tackling the fair Emma!” Mrs. James, who had been almost stunned by the terrible unrefinement of almost the whole of the foregoing scene, now started into agonised life and shuddered audibly. Mrs. Airey coloured all over her kindly face, and Mrs. Dunn flattened and shrank. Mrs. Tanner emitted a sudden twittering sound from her birdlike mouth. But it was Mrs. Clapham who answered the unspoken appeal, as indeed was her duty and her right. “I thank you kindly, Martha Jane Fell,” she said in her sorrowful mother’s voice, “for what you’ve done for my Tibbie and me, and for my poor Tibbie’s motherless barns.... As for my currant bread,” she added gently, “as you’re good enough to say you’d like, I’ll be right pleased to send you a loaf out o’ my baking o’ next week.” Once again, as at the table, across the Bible, the eyes of the two women met and locked. Once again it seemed as if some message passed between them, some mystical form of touch; and then without any warning Martha Jane burst into loud sobs. Holding her arm before her eyes, she turned and stumbled into the porch, and the long echo of her crying came to them faintly down the street.... When it had died away, Mrs. Tanner stirred briskly. Now that the storm was over, so to speak, she began preening her feathers and strutting about.