And at noon the house knew him no more.

Miss Rodney, on that same day, was able to offer her landlady a new lodger.
She had not spoken of this before, being resolved to triumph by mere force
of will.

'The next thing,' she remarked to a friend, when telling the story, 'is to
pack off one of the girls into service. I shall manage it by Christmas,'
and she added with humorous complacency, 'it does one good to be making a
sort of order in one's own little corner of the world.'




*****

A CHARMING FAMILY


'I must be firm,' said Miss Shepperson to herself, as she poured out her
morning tea with tremulous hand. 'I must really be very firm with them.'

Firmness was not the most legible characteristic of Miss Shepperson's
physiognomy. A plain woman of something more than thirty, she had gentle
eyes, a twitching forehead, and lips ever ready for a sympathetic smile.
Her attire, a little shabby, a little disorderly, well became the occupant
of furnished lodgings, at twelve and sixpence a week, in the unpretentious
suburb of Acton. She was the daughter of a Hammersmith draper, at whose
death, a few years ago, she had become possessed of a small house and an
income of forty pounds a year; her two elder sisters were comfortably