There was a washstand, with a mirror, twelve by fifteen inches, placed above it, a pine bureau, a couple of wooden chairs, and a cane-seated rocking-chair.
“There, my dear, what do you say to that?” asked Mrs. O’Keefe, complacently. “All nice and comfortable as you would wish to see.”
“It is—very nice,” said Florence, faintly, sacrificing truth to politeness.
“And who do you think used to live here?” asked the apple-woman.
“I’m sure I don’t know.”
“The bearded woman in the dime museum,” answered Mrs. O’Keefe, nodding her head. “She lived with me three months, and she furnished the room herself. When she went away she was hard up, and I bought the furniture of her cheap. You remember Madam Berger, don’t you, Dodger?”
“Oh, yes, I seen her often.”
“She got twenty-five dollars a week, and she’d ought to have saved money, but she had a good-for-nothin’ husband that drank up all her hard earnin’s.”
“I hope she didn’t drink herself,” said Florence, who shuddered at the idea of succeeding a drunken tenant.
“Not a drop. She was a good, sober lady, if she did work in a dime museum. She only left here two weeks ago. It isn’t every one I’d be willin’ to take in her place, but I see you’re a real leddy, let alone that Dodger recommends you. I hope you’ll like the room, and I’ll do all I can to make things pleasant. You can go into my room any hour, my dear, and do your little cookin’ on my stove. I s’pose you’ll do your own cookin’?”