any others of our company, I may call, as she is very generally
called in the household, The Lady. In giving her this name it is not
meant that there are no other ladies at our table, or that the handmaids
who serve us are not ladies, or to deny the general proposition that
everybody who wears the unbifurcated garment is entitled to that
appellation. Only this lady has a look and manner which there is no
mistaking as belonging to a person always accustomed to refined and
elegant society. Her style is perhaps a little more courtly and gracious
than some would like. The language and manner which betray the habitual
desire of pleasing, and which add a charm to intercourse in the higher
social circles, are liable to be construed by sensitive beings unused to
such amenities as an odious condescension when addressed to persons of
less consideration than the accused, and as a still more odious--you
know the word--when directed to those who are esteemed by the world as
considerable person ages. But of all this the accused are fortunately
wholly unconscious, for there is nothing so entirely natural and
unaffected as the highest breeding.

From an aspect of dignified but undisguised economy which showed itself
in her dress as well as in her limited quarters, I suspected a story
of shipwrecked fortune, and determined to question our Landlady. That
worthy woman was delighted to tell the history of her most distinguished
boarder. She was, as I had supposed, a gentlewoman whom a change of
circumstances had brought down from her high estate.

--Did I know the Goldenrod family?--Of course I did.--Well, the Lady,
was first cousin to Mrs. Midas Goldenrod. She had been here in her
carriage to call upon her,--not very often.--Were her rich relations
kind and helpful to her?--Well, yes; at least they made her presents
now and then. Three or four years ago they sent her a silver waiter, and
every Christmas they sent her a boquet,--it must cost as much as five
dollars, the Landlady thought.

--And how did the Lady receive these valuable and useful gifts?

--Every Christmas she got out the silver waiter and borrowed a glass
tumbler and filled it with water, and put the boquet in it and set it
on the waiter. It smelt sweet enough and looked pretty for a day or
two, but the Landlady thought it wouldn't have hurt 'em if they'd sent a
piece of goods for a dress, or at least a pocket-handkercher or two,
or something or other that she could 'a'