The Disagreeable Woman. Alger Horatio Jr.

a good deal between Waverley Place and the Star Theatre."

      "We did."

      "So I thought. I suppose you were discussing your fellow boarders, including poor me."

      "Not at all."

      "Then my name was not mentioned?"

      "Yes, I believe you were referred to."

      "What did she say about me?" inquired the widow, eagerly.

      "Only that she was older than you."

      "Mercy, I should think she was. Why, she's forty if she's a day. Don't you think so?"

      "I am no judge of ladies' ages."

      "I am glad you are not. Not that I am sensitive about my own. I am perfectly willing to own that I am twenty seven."

      "I thought you said twenty-nine, the other evening?"

      "True, I am twenty-nine, but I said twenty-seven to see if you would remember. I suppose gentlemen are never sensitive about their ages."

      "I don't know. I am twenty-six, and wish I were thirty-six."

      "Mercy, what a strange wish! How can you possibly wish that you were older."

      "Because I could make a larger income. It is all very well to be a young minister, but a young doctor does not inspire confidence."

      "I am sure I would rather call in a young doctor unless I were very sick."

      "There it is! Unless you were very sick."

      "But even then," said the widow, coquettishly, "I am sure I should feel confidence in you, Dr. Fenwick. You wouldn't prescribe very nasty pills, would you?"

      "I would order bread pills, if I thought they would answer the purpose."

      "That would be nice. But you haven't answered my question. What were you and Miss Blagden talking about?"

      "About doctors; she hasn't much faith in men of my profession."

      "Or of any other, I fancy. What do you think of her?"

      "That is a leading question, Mrs. Wyman; I haven't thought very much about her so far, I have thought more of you."

      "Oh, you naughty flatterer!" said the widow, graciously. "Not that I believe you. Men are such deceivers."

      "Do ladies never deceive?"

      "You ought to have been a lawyer, you ask such pointed questions. Really, Dr. Fenwick, I am quite afraid of you."

      "There's no occasion. I am quite harmless, I do assure you. The time to be afraid of me is when you call me in as a physician."

      "Excuse me, doctor, but Mrs. Gray is about to make an announcement."

      We both turned our glances upon the landlady.

      CHAPTER VI.

      COUNT PENELLI

      Mrs. Gray was a lady of the old school. She was the widow of a merchant supposed to be rich, and in the days of her magnificence had lived in a large mansion on Fourteenth Street, and kept her carriage. When her husband died suddenly of apoplexy his fortune melted away, and she found herself possessed of expensive tastes, and a pittance of two thousand dollars.

      She was practical, however, and with a part of her money bought an old established boarding-house on Waverley Place. This she had conducted for ten years, and it yielded her a good income. Her two thousand dollars had become ten, and her future was secure.

      Mrs. Gray did not class herself among boarding-house keepers. Her boarders she regarded as her family, and she felt a personal interest in each and all. When they became too deeply in arrears, they received a quiet hint, and dropped out of the pleasant home circle. But this did not happen very often.