l over! Only yesterday morning I had to beg him almost on my bended
knees to join us at dinner and then he only came in to oblige me. He
ate scarcely anything, poor dear!"

"Does he pay regularly?" inquired Mrs. Mangenborn, with a lack of
sympathy noted by her friend.

"As regularly as clockwork," snapped Miss Husted. "Half price, but how
long will he be able to pay even that? Only three pupils, and only one
of them pays him in cash. Oh, how people round here have changed since
I first came here; how much they do expect for their money nowadays!"

"He's out every afternoon, regularly. He's out evenings with his
fiddle; home at four in the morning, he doesn't do that for nothing. I
don't think he tells all he knows," concluded Mrs. Mangenborn with a
significant wink of the eye, which brought her fat cheek very close to
her eyebrow.

"Well," said Miss Husted with a sigh, "of course it's no business of
mine where he goes and what he does, but--whatever it is, it's all
right! That you can depend on, it is all right."

This was intended to be a rebuke to Mrs. Mangenborn, but it was
entirely lost on that lady, for with the very next breath she said
bluntly: "Why don't you ask him?"

Miss Husted set her lips firmly together, and this movement might have
warned a less obtuse person.

"Why don't you ask him?" repeated Mrs. Mangenborn.

"Because," replied Miss Husted, with more temper than she had ever
exhibited before to her friend, "because, Mrs. Mangenborn, it's none of
my business!"

There was a slight pause.

"Not wishing to give you a short answer, my dear," supplemented Miss
Husted, sorry that she had been compelled to take extreme measures to
stay her friend's curiosity.

To her utter surprise Mrs. Mangenborn still persisted.

"Well, it is your business, in a sense," went on that lady. "This is
your house, and it is your duty to see that it is conducted
respectably!"

"Respectably? Am I to understand, Mrs. Mangenborn, that you intend to
convey a hint that my house is not conducted respectably?" demanded
Miss Husted. Her back at this moment could not have been straighter
had she been leaning against the wall.

"Why, no!" assented Mrs. Mangenborn, who saw that she had gone a little
too far. "I merely said that it was your duty, and so it is! People
should always do their duty," she added somewhat vaguely.

"I trust I know my duty, Mrs. Mangenborn," said Miss Husted severely,
"nor do I requir