nderdone-griddle-cake-faced young woman was your lady-love. I
might make mistakes, and do more harm than good."

"Madam," I replied, "let us have done with this. I have never said one
word to the young lady in question of my feelings toward her, and it is
in the highest degree improper and unjust that she should be discussed
in connection with them. I have laid the matter before Mother Anastasia,
as she stands in position of parent to the young lady; but with no one
else can I possibly act, or even discuss the subject," and I bowed.

"I don't like this," she said, without noticing that I had taken leave
of her. "Mother Anastasia did not intend to leave here until to-morrow,
and she went away early this morning. She has some pressing business on
hand, and ten chances to one she has gone to fillip your young lady out
of your sight and hearing. Don't you see that it would not look at all
well for one of her sisters to marry, or even to receive the attentions
of a gentleman, immediately after she had left the institution?"

This suggestion, so like my own suspicions, greatly disturbed me.

"Are you in earnest," said I, "or is all this chaffer? What reasonable
interest can you take in me and my affairs?"

"I take no interest whatever," said she, "excepting that I have heard
you are both eccentric and respectable, and that I have found you
amusing, and in this class of people I am always interested. But I will
say to you that if there is a woman in that House who might make a
suitable and satisfactory marriage, if an opportunity were allowed her,
I believe she should be allowed the opportunity, and, acting upon
general principles of justice and a desire to benefit my fellow-mortals,
I should use my influence to give it to her. So you see that I should
really be acting for the girl, and not for you, although of course it
would amount to the same thing. And if Mother Anastasia has gone to pull
down the curtain on this little drama, I am all the more anxious to jerk
it up again. Come, now, Mr. Lover in Check,--and when I first heard your
name I had no idea how well it fitted,--confide in me. It would delight
me to be in this fight; and you can see for yourself that it would be a
very humdrum matter for me to join your opponents, even if I should be
of their opinion. They do not need my help."

This argument touched me. I needed help. Should Mother Anastasia choose
to close the doors of the House of Martha against me, what co