The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (7.1895)

Martha

274
snapped Amy. She turned into the dining-room to re-write the
address. The front door was open, and the gas-light from the
hall streamed out into the night. The steps were shining with
wet ; because of the fog, one could hardly see beyond them. The
street, at this time, was almost deserted, but the throb and roar of
a big London thoroughfare close at hand came to us through the
darkness.
I looked at Martha, who stood waiting beside me. She was
pale, and I noticed that she shifted wearily from one foot to the
other as though too tired to rest her weight upon either. Before,
however, I had time to say more than a hasty word to her, Amy
came back with the letter.
“You must go to the Post-office now,” she said. “ Be quick,
Martha, don’t lose a moment.”
The girl ran hastily down the steps, and Amy shut the door
behind her,
“ Stupid little thing,” she said vexedly. “ She seems always to
be doing something idiotic. I really don’t see how we are to
keep her.”
I should like to have represented the matter from my point of
view, but upon other people’s affairs, silence is presumably golden ;
therefore I held my peace.
Martha’s cup had been so full all day that, when she came to
my room, with hot water at bed-time, a kindly word or two over-
came her completely. She set down the hot water can, and
mopped her streaming eyes with a crumpled pocket-handkerchief.
I waited till her sobs became less suffocating. Presently she
stammered an excuse and an explanation. The mistress, it
appeared, had called her into her room half an hour earlier, and,
complaining that her only black gown was too shabby for daily
wear, had commanded her to buy another with the least possible
delay.