The Disagreeable Woman. Alger Horatio Jr.
a good deal between Waverley Place and the Star Theatre."
"We did."
"So I thought. I suppose you were discussing your fellow boarders, including poor me."
"Not at all."
"Then my name was not mentioned?"
"Yes, I believe you were referred to."
"What did she say about me?" inquired the widow, eagerly.
"Only that she was older than you."
"Mercy, I should think she was. Why, she's forty if she's a day. Don't you think so?"
"I am no judge of ladies' ages."
"I am glad you are not. Not that I am sensitive about my own. I am perfectly willing to own that I am twenty seven."
"I thought you said twenty-nine, the other evening?"
"True, I am twenty-nine, but I said twenty-seven to see if you would remember. I suppose gentlemen are never sensitive about their ages."
"I don't know. I am twenty-six, and wish I were thirty-six."
"Mercy, what a strange wish! How can you possibly wish that you were older."
"Because I could make a larger income. It is all very well to be a young minister, but a young doctor does not inspire confidence."
"I am sure I would rather call in a young doctor unless I were very sick."
"There it is! Unless you were very sick."
"But even then," said the widow, coquettishly, "I am sure I should feel confidence in you, Dr. Fenwick. You wouldn't prescribe very nasty pills, would you?"
"I would order bread pills, if I thought they would answer the purpose."
"That would be nice. But you haven't answered my question. What were you and Miss Blagden talking about?"
"About doctors; she hasn't much faith in men of my profession."
"Or of any other, I fancy. What do you think of her?"
"That is a leading question, Mrs. Wyman; I haven't thought very much about her so far, I have thought more of you."
"Oh, you naughty flatterer!" said the widow, graciously. "Not that I believe you. Men are such deceivers."
"Do ladies never deceive?"
"You ought to have been a lawyer, you ask such pointed questions. Really, Dr. Fenwick, I am quite afraid of you."
"There's no occasion. I am quite harmless, I do assure you. The time to be afraid of me is when you call me in as a physician."
"Excuse me, doctor, but Mrs. Gray is about to make an announcement."
We both turned our glances upon the landlady.
CHAPTER VI.
COUNT PENELLI
Mrs. Gray was a lady of the old school. She was the widow of a merchant supposed to be rich, and in the days of her magnificence had lived in a large mansion on Fourteenth Street, and kept her carriage. When her husband died suddenly of apoplexy his fortune melted away, and she found herself possessed of expensive tastes, and a pittance of two thousand dollars.
She was practical, however, and with a part of her money bought an old established boarding-house on Waverley Place. This she had conducted for ten years, and it yielded her a good income. Her two thousand dollars had become ten, and her future was secure.
Mrs. Gray did not class herself among boarding-house keepers. Her boarders she regarded as her family, and she felt a personal interest in each and all. When they became too deeply in arrears, they received a quiet hint, and dropped out of the pleasant home circle. But this did not happen very often.
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