not so much an object as the comforts of a
private hospital. There were sensitive creatures
who burst into tears on being addressed, and
had to be restored with glasses of cold water.
There were some respondents who came two
together, a highly promising one and a wholly
unpromising one: of whom the promising one
answered all questions charmingly, until it would
at last appear that she was not a candidate
at all, but only the friend of the unpromising
one, who had glowered in absolute silence and
apparent injury.

At last, when the good wine-merchant's simple
heart was failing him, there entered an applicant
quite different from all the rest. A woman,
perhaps fifty, but looking younger, with a face
remarkable for placid cheerfulness, and a manner
no less remarkable for its quiet expression of
equability of temper. Nothing in her dress
could have been changed to her advantage.
Nothing in the noiseless self-possession of her
manner could have been changed to her
advantage. Nothing could have been in better
unison with both, than her voice when she
answered the question: "What name shall I
have the pleasure of noting down?" with the
words, "My name is Sarah Goldstraw. Mrs.
Goldstraw. My husband has been dead many
years, and we had no family."

Half a dozen questions had scarcely extracted
as much to the purpose from any one else.
The voice dwelt so agreeably on Mr. Wilding's
ear as he made his note, that he was rather
long about it. When he looked up again, Mrs.
Goldstraw's glance had naturally gone round
the room, and now returned to him from the
chimney-piece. Its expression was one of frank
readiness to be questioned, and to answer
straight.

"You will excuse my asking you a few
questions?" said the modest wine-merchant.

"Oh, surely, sir. Or I should have no business here."

"Have you filled the station of housekeeper
before?"

"Only once. I have lived with the same
widow lady for twelve years. Ever since I lost
my husband. She was an invalid, and is lately
dead: which is the occasion of my now wearing
black."

"I do not doubt that she has left you the
best credentials?" said Mr. Wilding.

"I hope I may say, the very best. I
thought it would save trouble, sir, if I wrote
down the name and address of her representatives,
and brought it with me." Laying a card
on the table.

"You singularly remind me, Mrs. Goldstraw,"
said Wilding, taking the card beside
him, "of a manner and tone of voice that
I was once acquainted with. Not of an
individual—I feel sure of that, though I cannot
recal what it is I have in my mind—but of a
general bearing. I ought to add, it was a kind
and pleasant one."

She smiled, as she rejoined: "At least, I
am very glad of that, sir."

"Yes," said the wine-merchant, thoughtfully
repeating his last phrase, with a momentary
glance at his future housekeeper, "it was a
kind and pleasant one. But that is the most I
can make of it. Memory is sometimes like a
half-forgotten dream. I don't know how it
may appear to you, Mrs. Goldstraw, but so it
appears to me."

Probably it appeared to Mrs. Goldstraw in
a similar light, for she quietly assented to the
proposition. Mr. Wilding then offered to put
himself at once in communication with the
gentlemen named upon the card: a firm of
proctors in Doctors' Commons. To this, Mrs.
Goldstraw thankfully assented. Doctors' Commons
not being far off, Mr. Wilding suggested the
feasibility of Mrs. Goldstraw's looking in again, say
in three hours' time. Mrs. Goldstraw readily
undertook to do so. In fine, the result of Mr.
Wilding's inquiries being eminently satisfactory,
Mrs. Goldstraw was that afternoon engaged (on
her own perfectly fair terms) to come to-morrow
and set up her rest as housekeeper in Cripple
Corner.

THE HOUSEKEEPER SPEAKS.

On the next day Mrs. Goldstraw arrived, to
enter on her domestic duties.

Having settled herself in her own room,
without troubling the servants, and without
wasting time, the new housekeeper announced
herself as waiting to be favoured with any
instructions which her master might wish to give
her. The wine-merchant received Mrs.
Goldstraw in the dining-room, in which he had
seen her on the previous day; and, the usual
preliminary civilities having passed on either
side, the two sat down to take counsel together
on the affairs of the house.

"About the meals, sir?" said Mrs. Goldstraw.
"Have I a large, or a small, number
to provide for?"

"If I can carry out a certain old-fashioned
plan of mine," replied Mr. Wilding, "you will
have a large number to provide for. I am a
lonely single man, Mrs. Goldstraw; and I hope
to live with all the persons in my employment
as if they were members of my family. Until
that time comes, you will only have me, and
the new partner whom I expect immediately,
to provide for. What my partner's habits may
be, I cannot yet say. But I may describe
myself as a man of regular hours, with an invariable
appetite that you may depend upon to an ounce."

"About breakfast, sir?" asked Mrs.
Goldstraw. " Is there anything particular—-?"

She hesitated, and left the sentence
unfinished. Her eyes turned slowly away from
her master, and looked towards the chimney-
piece. If she had been a less excellent and
experienced housekeeper, Mr. Wilding might
have fancied that her attention was beginning
to wander at the very outset of the interview.

"Eight o'clock is my breakfast-hour," he
resumed. " It is one of my virtues to be never
tired of broiled bacon, and it is one of my vices
to be habitually suspicious of the freshness of
eggs." Mrs. Goldstraw looked back at him