"It's quarter of an hour before dinnertime, but if you'd rather go up to
the parlor we can."

"O, dear, no!" said Martha Slawson suavely. "_Any_ place is good enough
for me. Don't trouble yourself. I'm not particular _where_ I am."
Unbidden, she drew out a chair from its place beside one of the
uninviting tables, and sat down on it deliberately. It creaked beneath
her weight.

"O--oh! Miss Lang!" said Mrs. Daggett, surprised, seeing her young
lodger now, for the first time.

Martha nodded. "Yes, it's Miss Lang, an' I brought her with me, through
the turrbl storm, Mrs.--a--?"

"Daggett," supplied the owner of the name promptly.

"That's right, Daggett," repeated Martha. "I brought Miss Lang with me,
Mrs. Daggett, because I couldn't believe my ears when she told me she
was goin' to be--to be _turned out_, if she didn't pay up to-night,
_weather_ or no. I wanted to hear the real truth of it from you, ma'am,
straight, with her by."

Mrs. Daggett coughed. "Well, business is business. I'm not a capitalist.
I'm not keeping a boarding-house for my health, you know. I can't
afford to give credit when I have to pay cash."

"But, of course, you don't mean you'd ackchelly refuse the young lady
shelter a night like this, if she come to you, open an' honest, an' said
she hadn't the price by her just at present, but she would have it