"That ain't my business," the woman shrugged when she saw Felicia
looking at her. "We pays out rent by a receiver since the Mister
Burrel goes avay--I gotta get mine renta in adwance. I gotta nice room
if you vant to stay."

"But it's my house, of course I'll stay."

"It's a nice room, three dollars a veek--you vant to see it?"

The color blazed in Felicia's cheeks.

"I should like you to take me to it at once," she announced with
dignity. "You'll carry my bag, please."

The tailor's wife grumbingly obeyed her, preceding her new lodger with
ill concealed temper, her lumpy person almost blocking the ample
stairway.

Up they passed from the basement to the once stately hallway. Not even
the encrusted dirt could hide the beauty of the old tessellated marble
floors and arched doorways but where the oval topped doors had once
swung hospitably wide their gloomy panels now hid the drawing-rooms,
and where the long mirror had once made the hallway bright with
reflected light a dingy ill-painted wall made the passage so gloomy
that one could scarcely see above the first landing. Silently
Felicia's weary feet carried her along behind her untidy conductor.
Unconsciously she tiptoed as she passed the closed door of her
mother's room, tiptoed as gently as though that frail sufferer were
still lying listlessly on the "sleighback" bed. Quietly around the