nto her hand. "There are half a
dozen rooms there I don't use," he said, pointing through an open door.
"Go and look at them and take your choice. You can live in the one
you like best." From this bewildering opportunity Mrs. Bread at first
recoiled; but finally, yielding to Newman's gentle, reassuring push, she
wandered off into the dusk with her tremulous taper. She remained absent
a quarter of an hour, during which Newman paced up and down, stopped
occasionally to look out of the window at the lights on the Boulevard,
and then resumed his walk. Mrs. Bread's relish for her investigation
apparently increased as she proceeded; but at last she reappeared and
deposited her candlestick on the chimney-piece.

"Well, have you picked one out?" asked Newman.

"A room, sir? They are all too fine for a dingy old body like me. There
isn't one that hasn't a bit of gilding."

"It's only tinsel, Mrs. Bread," said Newman. "If you stay there a while
it will all peel off of itself." And he gave a dismal smile.

"Oh, sir, there are things enough peeling off already!" rejoined Mrs.
Bread, with a head-shake. "Since I was there I thought I would look
about me. I don't believe you know, sir. The corners are most dreadful.
You do want a housekeeper, that you do; you want a tidy Englishwoman
that isn't above taking hold of a broom."

Newman assured her that he suspected, if he had not measured, his
domestic abuses, and that to reform them was a mission worthy of her
powers. She held her candlestick aloft again and looked around the salon
with compassionate glances; then she intimated that she accepted the
mission, and that its sacred character would sustain her in her rupture
with Madame de Bellegarde. With this she curtsied herself away.

She came back the next day with her worldly goods, and Newman, going
into his drawing-room, found her upon her aged knees before a divan,
sewing up some detached fringe. He questioned her as to her leave-taking
with her late mistress, and she said it had proved easier than she
feared. "I was perfectly civil, sir, but the Lord helped me to remember
that a good woman has no call to tremble before a bad one."

"I should think so!" cried Newman. "And does she know you have come to
me?"

"She asked me where I was going, and I mentioned your name," said Mrs.
Bread.

"What did she say to that?"

"She looked at me very hard, and she turned very red. Then she bade me
leave her. I was all ready to go, and