IX

THIS IS NOT A BOON.
Othello; iii.--3.

If the old-time opinion that a woman whose name is a jest with men has
lost her claims to respect, Mrs. Amanda Welsh Sampson might be supposed
to have little ground for the inner anger she felt at the scantness of
the courtesy with which she was treated by Mr. Irons. That gentleman
was calling upon her in her tiny suite of rooms at the top of one of
those apartment hotels which stand upon the debatable ground between
the select regions of Back Bay and the scorned precincts of the South
End, and he was apparently as much at home as if the sofa upon which he
lounged were in his own dwelling.

The apartment of Mrs. Amanda Welsh Sampson gave to the experienced eye
evidences of a pathetic struggle to make scanty resources furnish at
least an appearance of luxury. The walls were adorned with amateur
china painting in the shape of dreadful placques and plates in livid
hues; there was abundance of embroidery that should have been
impossible, in garish tints and uneven stitches; much shift had been
made to produce an imposing appearance by means of cheap Japanese fans
and the inexpensive wares of which the potteries at Kioto, corrupted by
foreign influence, turn out such vast quantities for the foreign
market. Against the wall stood an upright piano--if a piano could be
called upright which habitually destroyed the peace of the entire
neighborhood--and over it was placed a scarf upon which apparently some
boarding-school miss had taken her first lesson in painting wild
flowers.