he heart beneath the frilly lace and mull was anything but brave.
It felt, in fact, quite as white and fluttery as the _jabbow_ looked,
and when Claire found herself being actually ushered into the boudoir of
the august _presence_, and told to "wait please," she thought it would
stop altogether for very abject fright.

Martha had tried, in a sort of casual, matter-of-course way, to prepare
her little lady for the trial, by dropping hints every now and then, as
to the best methods of dealing with employers--the proper way to carry
oneself, when one "went to live out in private fam'lies."

"You see, you always been the private fam'ly yourself, Miss Claire, so
it'll come kinder strange to you first-off, to look at things the other
way. But it won't be so bad after you oncet get used to it. There's one
thing it's good to remember. Them high-toned folks has somehow got it
fixed in their minds that _the rich must not be annoyed,_ so it'll be
money in your pocket, as the sayin' is, if you can do your little stunt
without makin' any fuss about it, or drawin' their attention. Just saw
wood an' say nothin', as my husband says.

"Mrs. Sherman she told me, when I first went there, an' Radcliffe was a
little baby, she 'strickly forbid anybody to touch'm.' It was on account
o' what she called _germs_ or somethin'. Well, I never had no particular
yearnin' to inflect him with none o' my germs, but when she was off
gallivantin', an' that poor little lonesome fella used to cry, an' put
out his arms to be took, I'd take'm, an' give'm the only reel
mother-huggin' he ever had in his life, an' no harm to any of us--to me
that give it, or him that got it, or her that was no wiser. Then, later,
when he was four or five, an' around that, she got a notion he was a
angel-child, an' she'd useter go about tellin' the help, an' other
folks, 'he must be guided by love alone.' I remember she said oncet he'd
be 'as good as a kitten for hours at a time if you only give'm a ball of
twine to play with.' Well, his nurse, she give'm the ball of twine one
day when she had somethin' doin' that took up all her time an' attention
on her own account, an' when she come back from her outin', you couldn't
walk a step in the house without breakin' your leg (the nurse she did
sprain her ankle), on account o' the cat's-cradle effect the young
villain had strung acrost the halls, an' from one doorknob to the other,
so there wasn't an inch o' the place free. An' he'd g