Right over Mrs. Clapham and to the ends of the earth the sun came out for ever and ever. Her hands shook as they tried to open the envelope and failed, and the Chorus grabbed it and did it for her. In the same piecemeal way they read the letter aloud, peering over her elbow and under her arm, while she laughed and wept and gasped, and thanked God and the governors and the world in general. Of what was actually in the letter she heard very little, except the fact that the house was undoubtedly hers. Mrs. James, of course, was inclined to dwell upon the flowers of speech which she guessed to have emanated from Mr. Baines, expressing the Committee’s appreciation of the successful candidate’s worth, and wishing her happiness under her new roof. The other women, not being burdened by an ideal, dwelt practically if ecstatically upon such details as the allowance and the coal; but Mrs. Clapham heard little of either. All she did was to exclaim “Ain’t that grand, now? That’s real nice! Ay, that’s right kind!” whenever the rising voices seemed to expect it. All that mattered for the moment was the fact that the dream had not failed her, that never for an instant had her confidence been misplaced. She had been sure that the right things happened in the right way at exactly the right time, and now she could go on being sure as long as she lived. People got what they wanted all right if only they had enough faith—that was another beautiful thing that the letter had proved true. She forgot the long wait and Martha’s clowning and Emma’s sinister looks, and only remembered that all was right with the world and God emphatically in His smiling heaven. And in the background Martha Jane bent to the complaining child, murmuring soothingly and making quaint little jokes with quivering lips. Taking the crooked gilt pin from her own dirty lace, she fastened the snowy frill of little Miss Baines. It had been a bad moment for Martha Jane when she was offered the letter by mistake, but there was no sense in blaming the child. She wasn’t “the almshouse sort,” she reminded herself again; and again, _because_ she wasn’t the almshouse sort, was able to raise a smile.... She pressed the pin-point into a safe place (pricking herself again), and the little girl, with a word of thanks, skipped away down the street. The women around Mrs. Clapham were falling silent at last, too exhausted to find anything fresh to read or invent. Behind them Emma was receding rapidly up the hill, making her way back to the dark house and the dying ferns.... Martha Jane braced herself for a final effort. “Off again, are you?” she called after the retreating figure. “The vanishing trick, eh? as per usual?... Ay, well, you got all you wanted, I reckon!” she laughed harshly. “You were in at the death-rattle, after all!”