despite all
argument to the contrary. It was most mortifying to Miss Husted that
Thurza had such deep-rooted prejudices against every guest that found
his way into her establishment. Lodgers made work; the more lodgers
the more work; ergo, lodgers were enemies, is the way Thurza reasoned
it out; and she resumed her occupation of cleaning silver (save the
mark) almost as cheerfully as she had left it to answer the door-bell.

"Dear me," sighed Miss Husted, "how hard it is to get help and how much
harder it is to keep them! Back again already? Why, Jenny, you must
have flown!" this last to a rather pretty little girl who had just
entered the door.

"Yes, aunt," replied the girl, "I knew Thurza must be busy--so--I--I
hurried."

"I can see that," her aunt said reprovingly, "you are dripping wet; you
shouldn't walk so fast in this hot weather."

Jenny was a thoughtful child. She had lived rather an unhappy
existence with her parents, for her father had deserted her mother when
she was three years old and after her mother's death she had come to
her aunt "for a few days" until a home could be found for her. The few
days were over some years before, for Miss Husted loved the child far
too well to let her go, and gladly made a home for her. Jenny loved
her aunt and stayed on. Curiously enough, not a word had ever been
spoken between them on the subject, and the little girl just fitted in,
adapting herself to Aunt Sarah's ways. Now this process of adjustment
was by no means an easy accomplishment, for Aunt Sarah had no sense of
time. She thought and felt herself to be just as young as she was
years and years ago.

Her looking-glass must have given her several hard jolts, but she
either believed a looking-glass to be an illusion or ignored its
evidence altogether; for though it showed her the face of a woman near
the danger line of fifty, she insisted on considering herself as in the
neighbourhood of thirty. She carried herself with the dignity of a
duchess; that is, a conventional duchess, and talked habitually with
the hauteur and elegance of a stage queen. Her kingdom was the Houston
Street establishment, her guests were her subjects, her aristocracy
were the foreign gentlemen who occupied rooms in the various parts of
her house, mostly hall bedrooms. She doted on fashion, refinement,
pungent perfumery and expensive flowers; anything that to her mind
suggested social grandeur appealed intensely to her. Eve