me the end of December.

She took out a white handkerchief, at hand in expectation of what was to
happen, and pressed it to her eyes. There was an interval of silence.
The Master closed his book and laid it on the table. The Young
Astronomer did not look as much surprised as I should have expected. I
was completely taken aback,--I had not thought of such a sudden breaking
up of our little circle.

When the Landlady had recovered her composure, she began again:

The Lady that's been so long with me is going to a house of her own,
--one she has bought back again, for it used to belong to her folks. It's
a beautiful house, and the sun shines in at the front windows all day
long. She's going to be wealthy again, but it doos n't make any
difference in her ways. I've had boarders complain when I was doing as
well as I knowed how for them, but I never heerd a word from her that
wasn't as pleasant as if she'd been talking to the Governor's lady. I've
knowed what it was to have women-boarders that find fault,--there's some
of 'em would quarrel with me and everybody at my table; they would
quarrel with the Angel Gabriel if he lived in the house with 'em, and
scold at him and tell him he was always dropping his feathers round, if
they could n't find anything else to bring up against him.

Two other boarders of mine has given me notice that they was expecting to
leave come the first of January. I could fill up their places easy
enough, for ever since that first book was wrote that called people's
attention to my boarding-house, I've had more wanting to come than I
wanted to keep.

But I'm getting along in life, and I ain't quite so rugged as I used to
be. My daughter is well settled and my son is making his own living.
I've done a good deal of hard work in my time, and I feel as if I had a
right to a little rest. There's nobody knows what a woman that has the
charge of a family goes through, but God Almighty that made her. I've
done my best for them that I loved, and for them that was under my roof.
My husband and my children was well cared for when they lived, and he and
them little ones that I buried has white marble head-stones and
foot-stones, and an iron fence round the lot, and a place left for me
betwixt him and the....

Some has always been good to me,--some has made it a little of a strain
to me to get along. When a woman's back aches with overworking herself
to keep her house in shape, and a dozen mouths