No. 13 Washington Square

green. In the end two considerations decided the matter. In the first place, meals sent to the room would undoubtedly be charged extra. In the second, it was possible that M

tchen. Mrs. De Peyster hazily saw perhaps a dozen people; from among whom a bare arm, slipping from the sleeve of a

tincture from a chemist's shop. In response to Mrs. De Peyster's glance of shrinking inquiry Matilda whispered that they were prunes. Next the casual-handed maid favored them with thin, unde

eyster glanced furtively at the company. Utterly common. And with such she had to ass

r a second glance. The other boarders, after their first scrutiny, hardly l

this was o

rstood. They were snubbing

He seated himself at a small table just beyond Mrs. De Peyster's and was unfolding his napkin when his eyes fell upon Mrs. De Peyster. And then Mrs. De Peyster saw one of the oddest changes in a

his full name; a face customarily sedate and elderish, and then, almost without perceptible change, for swift moments oddly youthful; with a wide mouth, which would suddenly twist up at its right corner as though from some unholy quip of humor, and whose as sudden straightening into a solemn line would show that the unseemly humor

d later. It was understood that he was waiting an

pper-time, there emerged from the room in front of hers the Rev

dlady,-"since we are neighbors we should also be friends." A

id not stop with words. Flowers, even edibles, were continuously found against her door, his card among them. The situation somehow recalled to her the queer

ing of these attentions. It was Matilda

a'am, he's trying t

horror from one of Mrs. Gil

t, ma'am," said th

f all the e

be the worst of it. For if he really falls in love with y

gasped Mrs.

ntenance He tried to become confidential, tried to press toward intimacy; one evening he even had the unbelievable audacity to ask if he might call upon her! She flamed with the desire to destro

tleman's unperturbed

told Mrs. Gilbert they intended doing, thus supplying "baggage" that would be security for their board, caused Mrs. Gilbert to regard them with hostile suspicion. Matilda saw eviction in t

to the week's e

ear it. Judge Harvey would secure her money gladly; but if the previous Friday she could not accept his aid, then a thousand times less could she accept it now. To ask his ai

in their room, they sp

might make out a check to me, dated last week, before you sailed

n everything happened, that

your overdrawing for a hun

with an air of noble principl

secret of Mrs. De Peyster's

"is all in a savings bank. I have to give th

mes wandered to a point a few inches below Mrs. De Peyster's th

not one of the world's famous jewels; yet was of sufficient importance to be known, in a limited circle, as "The

ook shocked. "What! I take

u to go to a pawnshop, ma'am," M

and asking for a fraction of its worth, a mere thousand or two; and of the hard-eyed usur

I would not part with such an

in a crisis

ll do, M

e due notice of her desire to withdraw her funds. That, however, was pr

atilda's eyes, aggrieved, bitterly resentful, upon the spot where beneath her

ost unco