“Oh dear, Mr. Popham! she’s dead too!� gasped Mellicent in distress.
“She’d be pleased to know how little we’ve missed her, I know,� responded Mr. Popham cheerfully. “Now, quite between ourselves, Miss Mellicent, since for the first time since I’ve known you we’re indulging in a confidential conversation—who’s carrying on the house?�
“Don’t you know? No—you’ve never asked or thought to ask in all these years,� returned Mellicent. “The person who carries on the house is—not quite—but I suppose she would be called so—a lady!�
“And very sensibly she manages,� approved Mr. Popham, “in keeping out of the way and letting you do it for her. And a nice income she makes, I’ll be bound! Why, the house has never been empty since first I come here. Old gentlemen with ample means on every floor, toddling out to their clubs when their various complaints permit, and dining at home—and dining comfortably, too—when they don’t. Such a polish on the boots, such a crispness of the breakfast bacon, such a flavor about the coffee and the curries, such a tenderness about the joints, such a dryness about the daily newspaper, and such an absence of over-statement about the total of the weekly bill as, with all my experience, I’ve never found elsewhere. And all owing to You! If your modesty allowed you to think over yourself for one moment—which I truly believe you’ve never done since you were born—you’d admit, Miss Mellicent—that you’re a wonder!�
“Oh! do you truly mean it?� she cried, with her heart upon her lips.
“I do,� answered Mr. Popham, with warmth. “And if the present proprietor of the lodgings wasn’t a lady—and knew what was good for him—he’d——�
“Oh no! No, Mr. Popham, sir, no! He wouldn’t. No one could ever think of me in such a way!� Her red and blackened hands went up to the piteous, quivering face, and her lean bosom heaved behind the meager bib of her scorched stuff apron. “Never!�
“Tell me now, upon your honor,� Mr. Popham pressed. “Haven’t you never looked at nobody in that way yourself?�
Miss Mellicent fairly writhed and shuddered with nervousness. But she laughed, looking away from Mr. Popham and into the old-fashioned but handsome glass over the mantelshelf, in which, within an Early Victorian frame of fly-spotted gilding, the reflection of Mr. Popham’s alert, well-featured, respectable profile and her own poor, wistful face appeared together.
“If you won’t ask me no more—yes, then! but he never dreamed o’ me!�