Everybody looked up. No one recognized the tone of her voice, it was so sharp and bitter.
"Why, may I ask?"
"I will not have my house turned into a bear-garden, that's why!"
"That's better than a graveyard," retorted Mr. Lang. "That's what the house would be without them. I can't understand why you object. You sleep in the basement and shouldn't hear a sound; my wife and I sleep under them every night. If we can stand it, you can. You send the boys away, Miss Teetum, and we'll move out."
Miss Ann winced under the shot, but she did not answer.
"Do you mean that you're going to turn the young gentlemen into the street, Miss Ann?" whined Mrs. Southwark Boggs in an injured tone, from her end of the table. "Are we going to have no young life in the house at all? I won't stay a day after they're gone."
Miss Teetum changed color, but she looked straight ahead of her. She evidently did not want her private affairs discussed at the table.
"I shall want my bill at the end of the week, now that the boys are to leave," remarked the little hunchback to Miss Ann as he bent over her chair. "Life is dreary enough as it is."
And so the boys stayed on.
Only one room became vacant at the end of the month. That was Mrs.
Schuyler Van Tassell's.