aid impatiently, "who is Laura?"

"Laura is the loyal negress who cooks the food for Mrs. Paynter's bright
young men. Her husband first deserted her, next had the misfortune to
get caught while burgling, and is at present doing time, as the saying
is. Now a young bright-skin negro desires to marry Laura, and speaks in
urgent tones of the divorce court. Her attitude is more than willing,
but she learns that a divorce, at the lowest conceivable price, will
cost fifteen dollars, and she had rather put the money in a suit and
bonnet. But a thought no larger than a man's hand has crossed her mind,
and she said to me just now: 'I 'clare, Miss Sharly, it do look like,
when you got a beau and he want to marry you, and all the time axin' and
coaxin' an' beggin' you to get a div-o'ce, it do look like _he_ ought to
pay for the div-o'ce.' Now what answer has your old science to give to a
real heart problem such as that?"

"May I ask that you will put the napkins away, or at the least remain
stationary? It is impossible for me to talk with you while you flutter
about in this way."

At last she came and sat down meekly at the table, her hands clasped
before her in rather a devotional attitude, while he, standing, fixed
her with his unwavering gaze.

"I speak to you," he began, uncompromisingly, "as to Mrs. Paynter's
agent. Professor Nicolovius is going to move in the spring and take an
apartment or small house. He has invited me to share such apartment or
house with him."

"What! But you declined?"

"On the contrary, I accepted at once."

Mrs. Paynter's agent was much surprised and interested by this news, and
said so. "But how in the world," she went on, puzzled, "did you make him
like you so? I always supposed that he hated everybody he does me, I
know."

"I believe he does hate everybody but me."

"Strange--extraordinary!" said Sharlee, picturing the two scholars alone
together in their flat, endeavoring to soft-boil eggs on one of those
little fixtures over the gas.

"I can see nothing in the least extraordinary in the refusal of a
cultured gentleman to hate me."

"I don't mean it that way at all-not at all! But Professor Nicolovius
must know cultured gentlemen, congenial roomers, who are nearer his own
age--"

"Oh, not necessarily," said Queed, and sat down in the chair by her,
Major Brooke's chair. "He is a most unsocial sort of man,"--this from
the little Doctor!--"and I doubt if he knows anybody better than he