, it is equally desperate. Should Minerva herself alight there
with a purse that would not compass Willard's, one cannot imagine what
would become of her. She would probably be seen wandering at late night,
with bedimmed stars and bedraggled gauze, until some vigorous officer
should lead her to the station-house for vagrancy. Thus when fascination
and forlornness are at equal discount, when powers and penuries go down
together, and common and uncommon sense fail alike, to what natural
feeling shall one hope to appeal? There is no sound spot of humanity
left to rest upon. It is a dilemma that is nothing but horns.

Possibly it is a trifle better in New England; but here, as elsewhere,
the chief enemy of woman is woman. It is women who keep our houses for
boarding and lodging, and, with a few radiant exceptions, it is they who
never take ladies. If by any chance a foothold be obtained there, the
only safety is in keeping it with stern self-denial of all outside
pleasures or excursions. Surrender for a week, and you return to that
door only to hear that two gentlemen have taken your room, and that they
will pay more. You ask for an attic. Just now there are two gentlemen
there. Will there be a place under the eaves? Possibly, next week. But
before then the two gentlemen are on hand again, have unpacked their
vials of unctuous hair-oil, and are happily snuggled under the eaves.
Indeed, they seem to make long journeys expressly to head one off, and
to be where they should not be. They are on time always, and in at the
winning. Some day one will pathetically die of two gentlemen on the
brain; and the doctor will only call it congestion. O for a new Knight
of a Sorrowful Figure, to demolish all such ubiquitous persons! I have
sometimes had as many as three of my engaged rooms at a time occupied by
these perpetual individuals,--myself waiting a-tremble on the portico.
Then it struck me that, if there were really any more gentlemen in
Washington Territory than here, women had better not go there.

Out of this exigency has arisen a grand vision of mine to build a flat
of five or six rooms; a single landing of dining- and drawing-rooms,
boudoir, bedroom, and kitchen with its apartment for a domestic. And,
either by lounge-bedstead or famous Plympton, there should be the
possibility of sleeping in every apartment but the kitchen. This would
be such sweet revenge for one whom the Fates had driven about for five
years to hunt lodging