first to try some other house of entertainment; and at last she agreed.
Now, whether our great distraction of mind gave us a haggard and sickly
aspect, or whether 'twas merely the suspicion and hardness of heart bred
in all people by terror, I cannot tell; but no one would take us in,
some saying flatly they would receive no lodgers they did not know, and
know to be sound. The day wearing fast away in these vain applications,
Althea says to me,--

'You see we must try my plan at last. I bid you think scorn, my Lucy, of
yielding to such base fears as make folk turn us from their doors.'

'It is not that I fear infection as they do,' said I; 'but I shrink from
dwelling in a house not our own, and lying open to any thief.'

'Baby fears, Lucy,' she said, smiling. 'We will do our cousins a better
turn than they merit; we will keep their doors fast against thieves, and
their household stuff from moth and mould and rust. For the infection,
we run as little risk in that house as out of it.' So she bore me down
with her will, the more easily since we had no choice but either to
lodge in that house or in the open street.

But Will said sturdily, 'Mistresses, you may do as you will; I will
neither eat nor sleep in that evil house. There is a scent of death and
sin breathing from it; I perceived it as we stood at the door.'

'And will you desert us then, Will?' said Althea. 'Have you come so far,
to forsake us now?'

'Who spoke of forsaking?' growled Will. 'I can find some balk, some
cobbler's stall, without the house, to sleep on, if you will lodge