many of the prose writers besides, tell us, is always dear. But after
the agents went away, saying they would communicate with us in the
morning, we never heard anything more from them, and we had to begin
all over again. There was something the matter, Jone and I both agreed
on that, but we didn't know what it was. But I waked up in the night
and thought about this thing for a whole hour, and in the morning I had
an idea.

"Jone," said I, when we was eating breakfast, "it's as plain as A B C
that those agents don't want us for tenants, and it isn't because they
think we are not to be trusted, for we'd have to pay in advance, and so
their money's safe; it is something else, and I think I know what it
is. These London men are very sharp, and used to sizing and sorting all
kinds of people as if they was potatoes being got ready for market, and
they have seen that we are not what they call over here gentlefolks."

"No lordly airs, eh?" said Jone.

"Oh, I don't mean that," I answered him back; "lordly airs don't go
into parsonages, and I don't mean either that they see from our looks
or manners that you used to drive horses and milk cows and work in the
garden, and that I used to cook and scrub and was maid-of-all-work on a
canal-boat; but they do see that we are not the kind of people who are
in the habit, in this country, at least, of spending their evenings in
the best parlors of vicarages."

"Do you suppose," said Jone, "that they think a vicar's kitchen would
suit us better?"

"No," said I, "they wouldn't put us in a vicarage at all; there