that to Mrs. De Peyster's amazed vision suggested an upended coffin,
contrived for the comfort of some deceased with remarkable width of
shoulder.

"Matilda!" she shiveringingly ejaculated. "I didn't know there was
anything like it in the world!"

"I know, ma'am, that it's not fit for you," grieved Matilda.
"But--it's better than nothing."

"And that thing there!" pointing a shaking finger at the abnormal
coffin. "What's that?"

"That's your bed, ma'am."

"My bed!"

"It lets down, ma'am. Like this."

Whereupon Matilda proceeded to let down that _sine qua non_ of a
profitable boarding-house, while Mrs. De Peyster, dismayed, looked
for the first time in her life upon the miracle of the unfolding of a
folding-bed. Her mistress's slumber prepared for Matilda then softened
the inaccuracies of the couch's surface for her own more humble
repose.

Neither felt like talking; there was too much to talk about. So soon
both were in their beds, the lights out. Mrs. De Peyster lay dazed
upon this strange bed that operated like a lorgnette: tremulously
existing, awake, yet hardly capable of coherent thought.

For a space she heard Matilda toss about, draw long, tremulous
breaths; then from the couch of that elderly virgin sounded the
incontrovertible tocsin of deep sleep. But for Mrs. De Peyster there
was no sleep; not yet.

She now was thinking; casting up accounts. Exactly twenty-four hours
since, she had officially sailed. Jack and that Mary person were now
in sweet and undisturbed possession of her house; Olivetta, on board
the Plutonia, was this minute reposing at ease amid the luxuries of
her _cabin de luxe_; and she, herself, Mrs. De Peyster, was lying on
a folding-bed, a most knobby bed,--the man who invented cobblestone
paving must have got his idea from such a bed as this,--in a
boarding-house the like of which till this night she had never
imagined to exist.

And only twenty-four hours!...

She stared up toward where, in the dark, the corpulent Cupids were
dancing their aerial May-ring ... and stared ... and stared....

CHAPTER X

PEACE--OF A SORT

The next morning there was a long, whispered discussion as to whether
Mrs. De Peyster should go down to breakfast or have all her meals sent
up to this chamber of distempered green. In the end two considerations
decided the matter. In the first place, meals sent to the room would
undoubtedly be charged extra. In the second, it was possible that Mrs