Mrs. Bryant shook her head. The different movement brought out quite a
different effect of glancing bugles. "Young people should be careful of
their health," was her profound remark.

"I assure you there's nothing the matter with me."

"Well, well! we'll hope not," she answered, "though you certainly do
look altered, Mr. Thorne, through being thinner in the face and darker
under the eyes."

Percival smiled impatiently.

"What was I saying?" Mrs. Bryant continued. "Oh yes--that there was a
many mercies to be thankful for. To find the house all right, and the
times and times I've dreamed of fire and the engines not to be had, and
woke up shaking so as you'd hardly believe it! And I don't really think
that I've gone to bed hardly one night without wondering whether Lydia
had fastened the door and the little window into the yard, which is not
safe if left open. As regular as clockwork, when the time came round,
I'd mention it to my sister."

Percival sighed briefly, probably pitying the sister. "I think Miss
Bryant has been very careful in fastening everything," he said.

"Well, it does seem so, and very thankful I am. And as I always say when
I go out, 'Waste I _must_ expect, and waste I _do_ expect,' but it's a
mercy when there's no thieving."

"Things will hardly go on quite the same when you are not here to look
after them, Mrs. Bryant."

"No: how should they?" the landlady acquiesced. "Young heads ain't like
old ones, as I said one evening to my sister when Smith was by. 'Young
heads ain't like old ones,' said I. 'Why, no,' said Smith: 'they're a
deal prettier.' I told him he ought to have done thinking of such
things. And so he ought--a man of his age! But that's what the young men
mostly think of, ain't it, Mr. Thorne? Though it's the old heads make
the best housekeepers, I think, when there's a lot of lodgers to look
after."

"Very likely," said Percival.

"I dare say you think there'd be fine times for the young men lodgers if
it wasn't for the old heads. And I don't blame you, Mr. Thorne: it's
only natural, and what we must expect in growing old. And if anything
could make one grow old before one's time, and live two years in one, so
to speak, I do think it's letting lodgings."

Percival expressed himself as not surprised to hear it, though very
sorry that lodgers were so injurious to her health.

"There's my drawing-room empty now, and two bedrooms," Mrs. Bryant
continued. "Not but what I've ha