me twice. He asked me if there was a good bedroom at the top of the
house, standing by itself--and you know there is, so I told him so; it
was exactly the kind of room that he described. And then he said that his
friend would pay two hundred pounds a-year for that bedroom, his board
and attendance; and he told me to ask you, and have your answer when he
should next meet me."

"Two hundred pounds!" ejaculated my poor little wife; "why that is nearly
twice as much as we expected."

"But did he say that his friend was sick, or very old; or that he had any
servant to be supported also?" I asked.

"Oh! no; he told me that he was quite able to take care of himself, and
that he had, I think he called it, an asthma, but nothing else the
matter; and that he would give no trouble at all, and that any friend who
came to see him, he would see, not in the house, but only in the garden."

"In the garden!" I echoed, laughing in spite of myself.

"Yes, indeed he said so; and he told me to say that he would pay one
hundred pounds when he came here, and the next hundred in six months, and
so on," continued she.

"Oh, ho! half-yearly in advance--better and better," said I.

"And he bid me say, too, if you should ask about his character, that he
is just as good as the master of the house himself," she added; "and when
he said that, he laughed a little."