The New Penelope, and Other Stories and Poems

by Frances Fuller Victor

"How did you expect to get furniture? Pardon me; but you see I want to learn all about the details of so strange a life."

"I don't think I expected anything, or thought of all the difficulties at once."

"Which was fortunate, because they would have discouraged you."

"It is hard to say what has or has not been for the best. But for that boarding-house scheme, I do not believe I should have married the man I did.

"As I was saying, Mr. Seabrook never annoyed me with attentions. He came and talked to me in a friendly manner, and with a superior air that disarmed apprehension on that score. Mrs. ——, my neighbor in the next room, once hinted to me that his visits were indicative of his intentions, and thereby caused me a sleepless night. But as he never referred to the subject, and as I was now full of my new business project, the alarm subsided. A house was finally secured, or a part of a house, consisting of a kitchen, dining-room and bed-room, on the first floor; and the same number of rooms above. I had a comfortable supply of bedding and table linen; the trouble was about cabinet furniture. But as most of my boarders were bachelors, who quartered themselves where they could, I got along very well."

"You made a success of it, then?"

"I made a success. I threw all my energies into it, and had all the boarders I could cook for."

"Mr. Seabrook boarded with you?—I conjecture that."

"Yes; and he took a room at my house. At first I liked it well enough; I had so much confidence in him. But in a short time I thought I could perceive that my other boarders were disposed to think that we looked toward a nearer relationship in the future. Perhaps they were justified in thinking so, as they could only judge from appearances; and I had asked Mr. Seabrook to take the foot of the table, and carve, because I had so much else to do that it was impossible for me to do that also. Gradually he assumed more the air of proprietor than of boarder; but as he was so much older and wiser, and had been of so much service to me, I readily pardoned what I looked upon as a matter of no great consequence.

"It proved to be, however, a matter of very great consequence. I had been established in the new house and business four or five weeks, when one evening, Benton being unusually ill, I asked Mr. Seabrook's advice about him. My bed-room was up stairs, against the partition which separated my apartments from those occupied by a family of Germans. I chose that room for myself because it seemed less lonely, and safer for me, to be where I could hear the voice of the little German woman, and she could hear mine. In the same manner my kitchen joined on to hers, and we could hear each other at our work. Benton being too ill to be dressed, was lying on the bed in my room, and I asked Mr. Seabrook to go up and look at him. He examined him and told me what to do, in his usual decided and assured manner, and went back to the dining-room, which was also my sitting-room. As soon as Benton was quieted, so that I could leave him, I also returned to the lower part of the house to finish my evening tasks.