ortune, began to impress itself upon her.

"It does seem to me," said she, "that it's a sin and a shame that you
should be goin' about this house just as you used to do, helpin' me
upstairs and downstairs, as if you couldn't afford to hire nobody. You
ought to have a girl, and a good one, and for the matter of that, you
might have two of 'em, I suppose. And even if it wasn't too much for you
to be workin' about when there's no necessity for it, the people are
beginnin' to talk, and that ought to be stopped."

"What are they talking about?" asked Mrs. Cliff.

"Well, it's not everybody that's talkin'," returned Willy, "and I guess
that them that does gets their opinions from one quarter, but I've heard
people say that it's pretty plain that all you got out of that gold mine
you spent in buyin' the things you brought home in your trunks; for if
you didn't, you wouldn't be livin' like this, helpin' to do your own
housework and cookin'."

In consequence of this conversation, a servant-of-all-work was employed;
for Mrs. Cliff did not know what she would do with two women until she
had made a change in her household arrangements; and with this as a
beginning, our good widow determined to start out on her career as a
rich woman who intended to enjoy herself in the fashion she liked best.

She sent for Mr. Thompson, the carpenter, and consulted with him in
regard to the proposed additions to her house, but when she had talked
for a time, she became disheartened. She found that it would be
necessary to dig a new cellar close to her present premises; that there
would be stones, and gravel, and lime, and sand, and carts and horses,
and men, and dirt; and that it would be some months before all the
hammering, and the sawing, and the planing, and the plastering, and
tinwork could be finished, and all this would be going on under her eye,
and close to her ears during those first months in which she had
proposed to be so happy in her home. She could not bear to give the word
to dig, and pound, and saw. It was not like building a new house, for
that would not be near her, and the hub-bub of its construction would
not annoy her.

So she determined she would not begin a new dining-room at present. She
would wait a little while until she had had some good of her house as it
was, and then she would feel better satisfied to live in the midst of
pounding, banging, and all-pervading dust; but she would do something.
She would have the fe