shocked and surprised at your mother-in-law's conduct as I was;
and that is saying a great deal--a great deal indeed. However, I have
a duty to perform. It is disagreeable, but it is not the less a duty
on that account. I am a single woman; not from want of opportunities of
changing my condition--I beg you will understand that--but from choice.
Situated as I am, I receive only the most respectable persons into my
house. There must be no mystery about the positions of _my_ lodgers.
Mystery in the position of a lodger carries with it--what shall I say? I
don't wish to offend you--I will say, a certain Taint. Very well. Now I
put it to your own common-sense. Can a person in my position be expected
to expose herself to--Taint? I make these remarks in a sisterly and
Christian spirit. As a lady yourself--I will even go the length of
saying a cruelly used lady--you will, I am sure, understand--"

I could endure it no longer. I stopped her there.

"I understand," I said, "that you wish to give us notice to quit your
lodgings. When do you want us to go?"

The landlady held up a long, lean, red hand, in a sorrowful and sisterly
protest.

"No," she said. "Not that tone; not those looks. It's natural you should
be annoyed; it's natural you should be angry. But do--now do please try
and control yourself. I put it to your own common-sense (we will say a
week for the notice to quit)--why not treat me like a friend? You don't
know what a sacrifice, what a cruel sacrifice, I have made--entirely for
your sake.

"You?" I exclaimed. "What sacrifice?"

"What sacrifice?" repeated the landlady. "I have degraded myself as a
gentlewoman. I have forfeited my own self-respect." She paused for a
moment, and suddenly seized my hand in a perfect frenzy of friendship.
"Oh, my poor dear!" cried this intolerable person. "I have discovered
everything. A villain has deceived you. You are no more married than I
am!"

I snatched my hand out of hers, and rose angrily from my chair.

"Are you mad?" I asked.

The landlady raised her eyes to the ceiling with the air of a person who
had deserved martyrdom, and who submitted to it cheerfully.

"Yes," she said. "I begin to think I _am_ mad--mad to have devoted
myself to an ungrateful woman, to a person who doesn't appreciate a
sisterly and Christian sacrifice of self. Well, I won't do it again.
Heaven forgive me--I won't do it again!"

"Do what again?" I asked.

"Follow your mother-in-law," cried t