Still Mrs. Slawson did not stir.

"I suppose you think you're a lady," she observed without the faintest
suggestion of heat. "I suppose you think you're a lady, but you
certainly ain't workin' at it now. What takes my time, though, is the
way you ackchelly seem to be meanin' what you say! Why, I wouldn't turn
a dog out a night like this, an' you'd let a delicate young girl go into
the drivin' storm, a stranger, without a place to lay her head--that is,
for all _you_ know. I could bet my life, without knowin' a thing about
it, that the good Lord never let you have a daughter of your own. He
wouldn't trust the keepin' of a child's body, not to speak of her soul,
to such as you. That is, He wouldn't if He could help Himself. But,
thanks be! Miss Lang ain't dependent. She's well an' able to pay all she
owes. Supposin' she _has_ been kinder strapped for a little while back,
an' had to economize by comin' to such a place as this! I've knowed
others, compelled to economize with three trunks alongside a
hall-bedroom wall, for a while, too, an' by an' by their circumstances
was such that they had money to burn. It's not for the likes of Miss
Lang to try to transack business with your sort. It would soil her lips
to bandy words, so I, an old fam'ly servant, an' proud of it! am
settlin' up her affairs for her. Be kind enough to say how much it is
you are ready to sell your claim to Christian charity for? How much is
it you ain't willin' to lend to the Lord on Miss Lang's account?" She
plucked up her skirts, thrust her hand, unembarrassed, into her
stocking-leg, and brought forth from that safe depository a roll of
well-worn _greenbacks_.

Mrs. Daggett named the amount of Claire's indebtedness, and Martha
Slawson proceeded to count it out in slow, deliberate syllables. She did