sold. What can _he_ want _here_?"

Yes, it was ARCHIBALD sure enough, biting his finger-nails and breathing
very short, while he cast furtive glances at the windows.

He went slowly up the steps and into the entry just as Mrs. BACKUP, the
landlady of the House, came out of her sitting-room.

Now, Mrs. BACKUP was one of your eminently respectable females, who are
always loaded to the muzzle with Beautiful Moral Essays, which they try
to cram down everybody's throat, but never practise themselves. She
formerly kept a boarding-house in the city, where, at table regularly
after soup, she would regale those present with long dissertations on
the shocking immorality of the present day, varying the monotony,
perhaps, by allusions to the boarders who had just left. "Mr. SIMPSON
was a pleasant-spoken young man as I want to see, and as good as the
bank, but I'm afraid he _was_ agettin' dissipated;" or, "Mr. FIELDING
was quiet and mannerly, and never found fault with his vittles, but he
had _one_ DREAD_ful_ habit;" and then she would sigh heavily. And when
little Miss PINKHAM, who occupied the second floor back (and who, being
a schoolma'am, was naturally debarred from the other sex), indulged in
the smallest possible flirtation with the good-looking young man
opposite, Mrs. BACKUP'S sharp eye not only saw her, but Mrs. BACKUP'S
sharp tongue took occasion to berate her severely on a Sunday morning
(for then the boarders are all in), at the top of the first landing (for
then the boarders could all hear her). "I _am_ saprised, Miss PINKHAM.
Why, when I see that young man asittin' at his winder, and a blowin'
beans. Yes, a blowin' beans, Miss PINKHAM, through a horrible tin
pop-gun at _your'n_, and a winkin' vicious, and you a enjoyin' on it,
Miss PINKHAM, I sot down; yes, I sot right down, and I shuddered. 'Sich