-or pretend to do--a little something
in the way of work--a little canvassing or artists' model or anything
you please. That helps them to explain at home--and also to make each
of the yellow-back men think he's the only one and that he's being
almost loved for himself alone."

Mrs. Belloc laughed. Mildred was too astonished to laugh, and too
interested--and too startled or shocked.

"But I was telling you how _I_ got down here," continued the landlady.
"Up in my town there was an old man--about seventy-five--close as the
bark on a tree, and ugly and mean." She paused to draw a long breath
and to shake her head angrily yet triumphantly at some figure her fancy
conjured up. "Oh, he WAS a pup!--and is! Well, anyhow, I decided that
I'd marry him. So I wrote home for fifty dollars. I borrowed another
fifty here and there. I had seventy-five saved up against sickness. I
went up to Boston and laid it all out in underclothes and house
things--not showy but fine and good to look at. Then one day, when the
weather was fine and I knew the old man would be out in his buggy
driving round--I dressed myself up to beat the band. I took hours to
it--scrubbing, powdering, sacheting, perfuming, fixing the hair, fixing
my finger-nails, fixing up my feet, polishing every nail and making
them look better than most hands."

Mildred was so interested that she was excited. What strange freak was
coming?

"You never could guess," pursued Mrs. Belloc, complacently. "I took my
sunshade and went out, all got up to kill. And I walked along the road
until I saw the old man's buggy coming with him in it. Then I gave my
ankle a frightful wrench. My! How it hurt!"

"What a pity!" said Mildred sympathetically. "What a shame!"

"A pity? A shame?" cried Mrs. Belloc, laughing. "Why, my dear, I did
it a-purpose."

"On purpose!" exclaimed Mildred.

"Certainly. That was my game. I screamed out with pain--and the
scream was no fake, I can tell you. And I fell down by the roadside on
a nice grassy spot where no dust would get on me. Well, up comes the
old skinflint in his buggy. He climbed down and helped me get off my
slipper and stocking. I knew I had him the minute I saw his old face
looking at that foot I had fixed up so beautifully."

"How DID you ever think of it?" exclaimed Mildred.

"Go and teach school for ten years in a dull little town, my dear--and
look in the glass every day and see your youth fading away--and you