"A widow?"
"Yes, not very young, and has two children. But they are old enough not to be annoying to a boarder."
"What sort of woman is she?"
"A good manager, neat, industrious, honest, and obliging. Very suitable for a landlady, if you are not looking in the person of your hostess for an intellectual companion."
"Oh, not at all, Miss Stanhope, unless—unless you could find it in your benevolent heart to take me in yourself;" and his smile was very insinuating. "In that case I should have the luxury of intellectual companionship superadded to the other advantages of which you have spoken."
The old lady smiled, but shook her head quite decidedly. "I have lived so long in the perfect house that I should not know how to give it up. I have come to think men a care and a trouble that I cannot take upon me in my old age."
"Excuse me, my dear madam, for the unwarrantable liberty I took in asking it," he said in an apologetic tone, and with a slightly embarrassed air. "I beg ten thousand pardons."
"That is a great many," she answered with a smile, "but you may consider them all granted. I hope you left my friend Mrs. Waters well? I must answer her letter directly."
"Ah, then you are not aware that she is already on her way to Europe?"
"No, is she indeed?"