“Now, Martha, don’t carry on like that!” she rebuked her authoritatively, though on a motherly note. “You’ll be finely ashamed, making such a to-do, if you find you’ve got the house, after all. Anyway, it’ll be a good day for one of us when t’news _does_ come along, and we don’t want it spoilt by nasty words. If it’s me as gets it, I hope you won’t take it too hard; and if it’s you”—her voice faltered a moment as she tried to envisage the fearful conditions in which such an event could ever occur—“I’ll be right glad to help you with moving in; ay, and to scrub floors for you an’ all!” The generosity of this offer produced an outburst of admiration from her satellites. “Eh, now, if that isn’t kind!.... Real Christian, _I_ call it!....” and “If that isn’t the kindest thing I ever heard!”—this last from young Mrs. James, retired within escaping distance of her pillars. Martha Jane looked spitefully round the group, and then back for a moment at Mrs. Clapham’s hand. The sun played on the wedding-ring as she looked, flashing it in her eyes, and suddenly she gave her shoulder a little twitch, so that the hand slid off it and dropped. “Thank you kindly, Ann Clapham!” she jeered, “I’ll be sure to think on. I’m not very set on cleaning, myself, so I’ll be glad of a hand. Folks is different, of course, and I wasn’t brought up to it, same as you. Some on us is finer clay than others, as his lordship says, and I reckon my sort o’ clay wasn’t intended for scrubbing floors!” There was another outburst, though one of resentment, at this grateful and gracious speech, and the charwoman turned away with the colour hot in her cheek. The heart that had felt so tender only a moment ago now seemed full of nothing but angry disgust. Martha Jane was certainly doing her best to spoil the beautiful day, first of all by turning it into a ribald joke, and then by setting the company by the ears. Just for the moment Mrs. Clapham felt thoroughly vexed with the whole world—with Martha Jane, with the post, with his lordship and Mr. Baines; and even, though quite unjustly, with the admiring Chorus itself. Even the lovely morning seemed to fade because of her wrath, taking with it, as it dimmed, the perfect certainty of her hope....