re!" said he.

I looked, but there was nothing unusual to see.

"What is it?" I asked.

He turned around and seeing Euphemia, said:

"Nothing."

It would be a very stupid person who could not take such a hint as that,
and so, after a walk around the garden, Euphemia took occasion to go
below to look at the kitchen fire.

As soon as she had gone, the boarder turned to me and said:

"I'll tell you what it is. She's working herself sick."

"Sick?" said I. "Nonsense!"

"No nonsense about it," he replied.

The truth was, that the boarder was right and I was wrong. We had spent
several months at Rudder Grange, and during this time Euphemia had
been working very hard, and she really did begin to look pale and
thin. Indeed, it would be very wearying for any woman of culture and
refinement, unused to house-work, to cook and care for two men, and to
do all the work of a canal-boat besides.

But I saw Euphemia so constantly, and thought so much of her, and had
her image so continually in my heart, that I did not notice this until
our boarder now called my attention to it. I was sorry that he had to do
it.

"If I were in your place," said he, "I would get her a servant."

"If you were in my place," I replied, somewhat cuttingly, "you would
probably suggest a lot of little things which would make everything very
easy for her."

"I'd try to," he answered, without getting in the least angry.

Although I felt annoyed that he had suggested it, still I made up my
mind that Euphemia must have a servant.

She agreed quite readily when I proposed the plan, and she urged me
to go and see the carpenter that very day, and get him to come and
partition off a little room for the girl.

It was some time, of course, before the room was made (for who ever
heard of a carpenter coming at the very time he was wanted?) and, when
it was finished, Euphemia occupied all her spare moments in getting it
in nice order for the servant when she should come. I thought she was
taking too much trouble, but she had her own ideas about such things.

"If a girl is lodged like a pig, you must expect her to behave like a
pig, and I don't want that kind."

So she put up pretty curtains at the girl's window, and with a box that
she stood on end, and some old muslin and a lot of tacks, she made a
toilet-table so neat and convenient that I thought she ought to take it
into our room and give the servant our wash-stand.

But all this time we had no