But it has been a poor
season for canaries, and a still poorer one for lodgers; for people
in these degenerate days prefer to be nearer the hotels and the mild
gaieties of the larger settlements. It is all very well so long as
I remain with her, and she wishes fervently that that may be for
ever; for never, she says, eloquently, never in all her Cheltenham
and Belvern experience, has she encountered such a jewel of a lodger
as her dear Miss 'Amilton, so little trouble, and always a bit of
praise for her plain cooking, and a pleasant word for the children,
to whom most lodgers object, and such an interest in the cow and the
fowl and the garden and the canaries, and such kindness in painting
the name of the cottage, so that it is the finest thing in the
village, and nobody can get past the 'ouse without stopping to gape
at it! But when her American lodger leaves her, she asks,--and who
is she that can expect to keep a beautiful young lady who will be
naming her own cottage and painting signboards for herself before
long, likely?--but when her American lodger is gone, how is she,
Mrs. Bobby, to put by a few shillings a month towards the debt on
the cottage? These are some of the problems she presents to me. I
have turned them over and over in my mind as I have worked, and even
asked Willie Beresford in my weekly letter what he could suggest.
Pages:
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129