Mrs. Ransom said, "Sh!"
I went back to the kitchen alone, and begged the cook to tell me what had happened. She was angrier than ever, and said the young ladies where she lived before never asked questions, and would never have fashed themselves about a housemaid who was a horrid person.
I was angry, too, at that, and told her she was jealous of Martha. She chased me out with a hot frying-pan.
We felt justified in disbelieving all Mrs. Ransom had said when we found out that Martha had not "gone under" at all. She had gone to stay with the family of Little Klaus. But our mother said Little Klaus's wife ought not to have taken Martha in. And she wrote Mrs. Klaus a letter.
As for us, we were never to speak to Martha again. And we were not to go near Little Klaus's cottage as long as Martha stayed there. Very soon she went away.
We were reminded of Martha whenever a beggar came to the back-door, or a dusty man on the heath-road asked us for his fare to Brighton.
Martha would have told the beggar to go and wait in the first clump of gorse. And she would
