“Ay, Ann Clapham ’ll get it; there’s no doubt about that.... I don’t say but what I couldn’t have had it myself, but there, thanks be, I don’t need other folks’ brass. Ann Clapham’s had a hard life, though, and deserves a bit o’ quiet. I don’t know as she’ll take to it just at first—being a lady and all that; but there, I reckon she knows her own business best.... She isn’t as young as she was, neither, and folks as works over hard wear out ter’ble fast. Ay, she’ll get t’ house, will Ann Clapham; there’s no doubt about that.” There was another uncomfortable pause when she had finished, and Mrs. Clapham cast an uneasy glance at her over her shoulder. What Emma was saying _sounded_ all right—at least, for Emma—so she was at a loss to understand why it should fill her with apprehension. Yet, instead of strengthening her own conviction of coming fortune, in some mysterious fashion it undermined it. She began to feel that, if Emma continued to say that sort of thing, she would not only lose all confidence in her luck, but would find it lacking in flavour if established. She really wished now that she had been patient enough to await the news indoors, and was even beginning to turn on her heel when she was called to attention by Mrs. James. “There he is!” the latter was saying from under the feathers, disappointed yet thrilled. “Look ye! Look ye, Mrs. Clapham! There he is! There’s t’ post!” The uniformed figure of the postman had suddenly appeared round the curve of the street, and at once Mrs. Clapham and Martha drew together, as if conscious that neither for the lucky nor the unlucky would it be possible to meet this moment alone. Mrs. James slipped her hand through Mrs. Clapham’s arm and gave it an excited squeeze, and the charwoman flushed a deep crimson and paled slowly again. Martha Jane, however, to whom excitement was the breath of life itself, looked for the moment strangely brisk and young. A hint of the old rose-colour came into her cheek, and a youthfully brilliant sparkle into her eye. Mrs. Tanner and her colleagues broke into little twitters and chirps.... “Eh, but he’s taken his time!... Which on ’em will it be?... Eh, but I’m right thrilled!...” While at the back of them all, where she stood silent and still a little apart, Emma uncrossed her hands and let them drop to her sides.