room! Oh,
my! A nice example to servants! Well, he was very insulting--most
insulting. He said he paid me to give him not what I wanted, but what
_he_ wanted! He said if I went into a shop, and they began to tell me
what I ought to want and when I ought to want it, I should be annoyed. I
said I didn't need anyone to tell me that, I said! And my house wasn't a
shop. He said it was a shop, and if it wasn't, it ought to be! Can you
imagine it?"

Hilda tried to exhibit a tepid sympathy. Miss Gailey's nostrils were
twitching, and the tears stood in those watery eyes. She could manage
the house. By the exertion of all her powers and her force she had made
of herself an exceptionally efficient mistress. But she could not manage
the boarders, because she had not sufficient imagination to put herself
in their place. Presiding over all her secret thoughts was the axiom
that the Cedars was a perfect machine, and that the least that a
grateful boarder could do was to fit into the machine.

"And so you said they could go?"

"That I did! And I'll tell you another thing, my dear, I--"

There was a knock at the door. Sarah Gailey stopped in her confidences
like a caught conspirator, and opened the door. Hettie stood on the
mat--the Hettie who despite frequent protests would leave Hilda's toast
to cool into leather on the landing somewhere between the kitchen and
the bedroom. In Hettie's hand was a telegram, which Miss Gailey
accepted.

"Here, take the tray, Hettie," said she, nervously tearing at the
envelope. "Put these books in my desk," she added.

"And I wonder what _he'll_ say!" she observed, staring absently at the
opened telegram, after Hettie had gone.

"Who?"

"George. He says he'll be up here for lunch. He's bound to be vexed
about the Boutwoods. But he doesn't understand. Men don't, you know!
They don't understand the strain it is on you." The appeal of her eyes
was strangely pathetic.

Hilda said:

"I don't think I shall get up for lunch to-day."

Sarah Gailey moved to the bed, forgetting her own trouble.

"You aren't so well, then, after all!" she muttered, with mournful
commiseration. "But, you know, he'll have to see you, _this_ time. He
wants to."

"But why?"

"Your affairs, I suppose. He says so. 'Coming lunch one. Must see
Hilda.--George.'"

Sarah Gailey offered the telegram. But Hilda could not bear to take it.
This telegram was the first she had set eyes on since the telegram
handed to her by F