Page:The Yellow Book - 07.djvu/315

 delay. Also the broken vegetable dish must be made good out of her next month's wages.

"I can't do it, m'm, indeed I can't," she said, breathlessly; "I don't have but seven pound a year; and I've got to help mother all I can. Father died just before I came here, and mother has four children besides me to look after; she's not strong either, isn't mother."

"Your frock is shabby, Martha," I said severely; "it's shiny at the seams and frayed at the hem. As for the vegetable dish—well, you break a lot of things, you know, and Mrs. Norris is not rich enough to replace them."

Martha sniffed sadly.

"But white caps and aprons do run into money," she remarked, with apparent irrelevance, and turned towards the door to depart. Her head drooped disconsolately, her tired feet dragged as she walked.

"Martha," said I, "stop a minute, and come here."

She came back at once, standing before me with tear-stained cheeks; her breath, like that of a grieving child, caught now and again in a vagrant, shivering sob.

I meant to give myself the luxury of a kindness, and Martha the pleasure of a new gown.

"The vegetable dish," said I, "you must replace yourself; but the frock I will give to you. I will buy the stuff, and we must find somebody who can make it up for you nicely. But, if I do this, you must promise me to be very careful in future, and to break no more dishes."

For a minute the girl made no reply, then the ready tears brimmed again into her eyes.

"Oh! m'm, you are good—you are good," she said eagerly. "And I will try; that I will. But I'm that stupid, I never seem able to do right."

The Yellow Book—Vol. VII.