Honora confessed, with no great enthusiasm, that she knew the present
Mrs. Waterford. Not the least of her tribulations had been to listen to a
partial recapitulation, by the Honourable Dave, of the ladies he had
assisted to a transfer of husbands. What, indeed, had these ladies to do
with her? She felt that the very mention of them tended to soil the pure
garments of her martyrdom.

"What I was going to say was this," the Honourable Dave continued. "Mrs.
Boutwell--that is to say Mrs. Waterford--couldn't stand this hotel any
more than you, and she felt like you do about the colony, so she rented a
little house up on Wylie Street and furnished it from the East. I took
the furniture off her hands: it's still in the house, by the way, which
hasn't been rented. For I figured it out that another lady would be
coming along with the same notions. Now you can look at the house any
time you like."

Although she had to overcome the distaste of its antecedents, the house,
or rather the furniture, was too much of a find in Salomon City to be
resisted. It had but six rooms, and was of wood, and painted grey, like
its twin beside it. But Mrs. Waterford had removed the stained-glass
window-lights in the front door, deftly hidden the highly ornamental
steam radiators, and made other eliminations and improvements, including
the white bookshelves that still contained the lady's winter reading
fifty or more yellow-and-green-backed French novels and plays. Honora's
first care, after taking possession, was to order her maid to remove
these from her sight: but it is to be feared that they found their way,
directly, to Mathilde's room. Honora would have liked to fumigate the
house; and yet, at the same time, she thanked her stars for it. Mr.
Beekwith obligingly found her a cook, and on Thursday evening she sat
down to supper in her tiny dining room. She had found a temporary haven,