curiosity; and among the many counterbalancing virtues she
possessed was the virtue of greatly respecting Mr. Bashwood, as a lodger
whose rent was regularly paid, and whose ways were always quiet and
civil from one year's end to another.

"What did you please to want, sir?" asked the landlady. "Boiling water,
is it? Did you ever know the water boil, Mr. Bashwood, when you wanted
it? Did you ever see a sulkier fire than that? I'll put a stick or two
in, if you'll wait a little, and give me the chance. Dear, dear me,
you'll excuse my mentioning it, sir, but how poorly you do look to-day!"

The strain on Mr. Bashwood's mind was beginning to tell. Something of
the helplessness which he had shown at the station appeared again in his
face and manner as he put his teapot on the kitchen table and sat down.

"I'm in trouble, ma'am," he said, quietly; "and I find trouble gets
harder to bear than it used to be."

"Ah, you may well say that!" groaned the landlady. "_I'm_ ready for the
undertaker, Mr. Bashwood, when _my_ time comes, whatever you may be.
You're too lonely, sir. When you're in trouble, it's some help--though
not much--to shift a share of it off on another person's shoulders. If
your good lady had only been alive now, sir, what a comfort you would
have found her, wouldn't you?"

A momentary spasm of pain passed across Mr. Bashwood's face. The
landlady had ignorantly recalled him to the misfortunes of his married
life. He had been long since forced to quiet her curiosity about his
family affairs by telling her that he was a widower, and that his
domestic circumstances had not been happy ones; but he had taken her
no further into his confidence than this. The sad story which he had
related to Midwinter, of his drunken wife who had ended her miserable
life in a lunatic asylum, was a story which he had shrunk from confiding
to the talkative woman, who would have confided it in her turn to every
one else in the house.

"What I always say to my husband when he's low, sir," pursued the
landlady, intent on the kettle, "is, 'What would you do _now_, Sam,
without me?' When his temper don't get the better of him (it will boil
directly, Mr. Bashwood), he says, 'Elizabeth, I could do nothing.'
When his temper does get the better of him, he says, 'I should try the
public-house, missus; and I'll try it now.' Ah, I've got _my_ troubles!
A man with grown-up sons and daughters tippling in a public-house! I
don't call to mind, Mr.