some time in London, where I had business to
transact for the firm with which I was engaged, we immediately began to
make ourselves as much at home as possible. Pomona, assisted by Jonas,
undertook at once the work of the house. To this the landlady, who kept
a small servant, somewhat objected, as it had been her custom to attend
to the wants of her lodgers.

"But what's the good of Jonas an' me bein' here," said Pomona to us,
"if we don't do the work? Of course, if there was other lodgers, that
would be different, but as there's only our own family, where's the
good of that woman and her girl doin' anything?"

And so, as a sort of excuse for her being in Europe, she began to get
the table ready for supper, and sent Jonas out to see if there was any
place where he could buy provisions. Euphemia and I were not at all
certain that the good woman of the house would be satisfied with this
state of things; but still, as Jonas and Pomona were really our
servants, it seemed quite proper that they should do our work. And so
we did not interfere, although Euphemia found it quite sad, she said,
to see the landlady standing idly about, gazing solemnly upon Pomona
as she dashed from place to place engaged with her household duties.

After we had been in the house for two or three days, Pomona came into
our sitting-room one evening and made a short speech.

"I've settled matters with the woman here," she said, "an' I think
you'll like the way I've done it. I couldn't stand her follerin' me
about, an' sayin' 'ow they did things in Hingland, while her red-faced
girl was a-spendin' the days on the airy steps, a-lookin' through the
railin's. 'Now, Mrs. Bowlin',' says I, 'it'll just be the ruin of you
an' the death of me if you keep on makin' a picter of yourself like
that lonely Indian a-sittin' on a pinnacle in the jographys, watchin'
the inroads of civilization, with a locomotive an' a cog-wheel in
front, an' the buffalo an' the grisly a-disappearin' in the distance.
Now it'll be much better for all of us,' says I, 'if you'll git down
from your peak, and try to make up your mind that the world has got to
move. Aint there some place where you kin go an' be quiet an'
comfortable, an' not a-woundin' your proud spirit a-watchin' me bake
hot rolls for breakfast an' sich?' An' then she says she'd begun to
think pretty much that way herself, an' that she had a sister a-livin'
down in the Sussex Mews, back of Gresham Terrace, Camber