at evening, but returned home and went to my bed without
putting on clothes to be buried in!"

We talked for a little of well attested instances of similar incidents
of the seeming supernatural. Then I said:

"And how did your investment turn out?"

"As might have been expected by a more worldly-wise person. After
succeeding, almost, I was defeated by the selfishness and indifference
of the man I had trusted to help me through with it. He sold out his
property, including that bonded to me, when nearly the whole
indebtedness was paid, without mentioning his design, or giving me an
opportunity to complete the purchase. The new proprietor went
immediately to Mr. Seabrook, who, delighted with this unexpected piece
of fortune, borrowed the small amount remaining to be paid, and had the
property deeded to himself. A short time after he sold it at a handsome
advance on the price I paid for it, and I had never one dollar of the
money. The entire savings of the whole time I had been in a really
profitable business, went with that unlucky venture."

"You were just as far from getting to California as ever? O, what
outrageous abuse of the power society gives men over women!" I exclaimed
with vehemence.

"You may imagine I was bitterly disappointed. The lesson was a hard one,
but salutary. I took no more disinterested advice; I bought no more
property. There are too many agents between a woman and the thing she
aims at, for her ever to attain it without danger of discomfiture. The
experience, as you may guess, put me in no amicable mood towards Mr.
Seabrook. Just think of it! There were three years I had supported, by
my labor, a large family of men, for that is what it amounted to. My
money purchased the food they all ate, and I had really received nothing
for it except my board and the clothes I worked in. The fault was not
theirs; it was Mr. Seabrook's and society's."

"I will tell you what you remind me of," I said: "You are like Penelope,
and her train of ravenous suitors, in the _Odyssey_ of Homer."

"In my busy life, I have not had time to read Homer," Mrs. Greyfield
replied; "but if any other woman has been so eaten out of house and
home, as I was, I am sorry for her."

"Homer's Penelope, if we may believe the poet, was in much better
circumstances to bear the ravages of her riotous boarders, than you were
to feed yours gratuitously."

"Talking about suitors," said Mrs. Greyfield, "I was not without those
entirel