om. "I think Gower Street would be found to be
inconvenient, Miss O'Mahony."

"Bloomsbury Square is very near. Here we are at the hotel. Now,
father, before you have anything taken off the carriages, ask the
prices."

Then Mr. Moss, still keeping his seat, made a little speech. "I think
if Miss O'Mahony would allow me, I would counsel her against too
rigid an economy. She will have heard of the old proverb,--'A penny
wise and a pound foolish.'"

"'Cut your coat according to your cloth,' I have heard of that too;
and I have heard of 'Burning a candle at both ends.'"

"'You shouldn't spoil your ship for a ha'porth of tar,'" said Mr.
Moss with a smile, which showed his idea, that he had the best of the
argument.

"It won't matter for one night," said Mr. O'Mahony, getting out of
the carriage. Half the packages had been already taken off the cab.

Rachel followed her father, and without attending to Mr. Moss got
hold of her father in the street. "I don't like the look of the house
at all, father, you don't know what the people would be up to. I
shall never go to sleep in this house." Mr. Moss, with his hat off,
was standing in the doorway, suffused, as to his face, with a bland
smile.

It may be as well to say at once that the house was all that an hotel
ought to be, excepting, perhaps, that the prices were a little high.
The two sitting-rooms and the two bedrooms--with the maid's room,
which had also been taken--did seem to be very heavy to Rachel, who
knew down to a shilling--or rather, to a dollar, as she would have
said--how much her father had in his pocket. Indefinite promises of
great wealth had been also made to herself; but according to a scale
suggested by Mr. Moss, a pound a night, out of which she would have
to keep herself, was the remuneration immediately promised. Then
a sudden thought struck Miss O'Mahony. They were still standing
discussing the price in one of the sitting-rooms, and Mr. Moss was
also there. "Father," she said, "I'm sure that Frank would not
approve."

"I don't think that he would feel himself bound to interfere," said
Mr. O'Mahony.

"When a young woman is engaged to a young man it does make a
difference," she replied, looking Mr. Moss full in the face.

"The happy man," said Mr. Moss, still bowing and smiling, "would
not be so unreasonable as to interfere with the career of his fair
_fiancee_."

"If we stay here very long," said Rachel, still addressing her
father, "I guess