narrow linoleumed hall, so
beeswaxed that one had to stump along carefully erect.

She invited me to a chair in a stiff room and began--

"I've only got another young lady in the place now, and if you come
you'll have to eat with the family."

I considered this an attraction.

"And there'll be no fussing over you and pampering you, for I'm not
reduced to keeping boarders out of necessity. They ain't all I've got
to depend on," she said with a fiery glance from her choleric
blue-grey eyes.

"Certainly not; I'm sure of that by your style, Mrs. Clay."

"But of course I like to make a little; this Federal Tariff has rose
the price of living considerable," she said, softening somewhat as we
now sat down on the formidable and well-dusted seats.

"But I believe you are somethink of a invalid."

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Well, this isn't no private hospital, and never pretended to be. Sick
people is a lot of trouble potterin' and fussin' around with. I
couldn't, for the sake of my granddaughter, give her a lot of extra
work that wouldn't mean nothink."

This might have sounded hard, but with some people their very
austerity bespeaks a tenderness of heart. They affect it as a shield
or guard against a softness that leaves them the too easy prey of a
self-seeking community, and such I adjudged Mrs. Clay. Her stiffness,
like that of the echidna, was a spiky covering protecting the most
gentle and estimable of dispositions.

"My ill-health is the sort to worry no one but myself. I need no
dieting or waiting upon. It is merely a heart trouble, and should it
happen to finish me in your house, I will leave ample compensation,
and will pay my board and lodging weekly in advance."

"I ain't a money-grubber," she hastened to assure me; "I was only
explaining to you."

"I'm only explaining too," I said with a smile; and having arrived at
this understanding of mutual straight-going, she intimated that I
could inspect a room I might have.

In addition to a couple of detached buildings composed of rooms which
during the summer were given to boarders, there were a few apartments
in the main residence which were also delivered to this business, and
I was conducted to where three in an uneven gable faced west and
fronted the river.

"This is my granddaughter Dawn's, and this one is empty, and this one
is took by a young party for the winter," said the old dame.

I selected the middle room, as it gave promise of being companio