always yellin' for hot water to wash their
hair, or pastin' handkerchiefs up on the mirr'r or wantin' to butt into
the kitchen to press this or that. I'll let you know if the gent don't
take it, but I got an idea he will."

He did. At any rate, no voice summoned me to that haven for gents only.
There were other landladies--landladies fat and German; landladies lean
and Irish; landladies loquacious (regardless of nationality); landladies
reserved; landladies husbandless, wedded, widowed, divorced, and
willing; landladies slatternly; landladies prim; and all hinting of past
estates wherein there had been much grandeur.

At last, when despair gripped me, and I had horrid visions of my trunk,
hat-box and typewriter reposing on the sidewalk while I, homeless, sat
perched in the midst of them, I chanced upon a room which commanded a
glorious view of the lake. True, it was too expensive for my slim purse;
true, the owner of it was sour of feature; true, the room itself was
cavernous and unfriendly and cold-looking, but the view of the great,
blue lake triumphed over all these, although a cautious inner voice
warned me that that lake view would cover a multitude of sins. I
remembered, later, how she of the sour visage had dilated upon the
subject of the sunrise over the water. I told her at the time that while
I was passionately fond of sunrises myself, still I should like them
just as well did they not occur so early in the morning. Whereupon she
of the vinegar countenance had sniffed. I loathe landladies who sniff.

My trunk and trusty typewriter were sent on to my new home at noon,
unchaperoned, for I had no time to spare at that hour of the day. Later
I followed them, laden with umbrella, boxes, brown-paper parcels, and
other unfashionable moving-day paraphernalia. I bumped and banged my way
up the two flights of stairs that led to my lake view and my bed, and
my heart went down as my feet went up. By the time the cavernous
bedroom was gained I felt decidedly quivery-mouthed, so that I dumped my
belongings on the floor in a heap and went to the window to gaze on the
lake until my spirits should rise. But it was a gray day, and the lake
looked large, and wet and unsociable. You couldn't get chummy with it.
I turned to my great barn of a room. You couldn't get chummy with that,
either. I began to unpack, with furious energy. In vain I turned every
gas jet blazing high. They only cast dim shadows in the murky vastness
of tha