the crape-covered woman had followed me
up-stairs—the source from which the drop
of warm water had fallen was no other than
Mrs. Badgery's eye.

"I wish you could contrive not to cry over
the top of my head, ma'am," said I. My
patience was becoming exhausted, and I
spoke with considerable asperity. The curly-
headed youth of the present age may not be
able to sympathise with my feelings on this
occasion; but my bald brethren know, as
well as I do, that the most unpardonable of
all liberties is a liberty taken with the
unguarded top of the human head.

Mrs. Badgery did not seem to hear me.
When she had dropped the tear, she was
standing exactly over me, looking down at
the grate; and she never stirred an inch after
I had spoken. "Don't cry over my head,
ma'am," I repeated, more irritably than before.

"This was his dressing-room," said Mrs.
Badgery, indulging in muffled soliloquy. "He
was singularly particular about his shaving-
water. He always liked to have it in a little
tin pot, and he invariably desired that it
might be placed on this hob." She groaned
again, and tapped one side of the grate with
the leg of her camp-stool.

If I had been a woman, or if Mrs. Badgery
had been a man, I should now have
proceeded to extremities, and should have
vindicated my right to my own house by an
appeal to physical force. Under existing
circumstances, all that I could do was to
express my indignation by a glance. The glance
produced not the slightest result—and no
wonder. Who can look at a woman with
any effect, through a crape veil?

I retreated into the second-floor front
room, and instantly shut the door after me.
The next moment I heard the rustling of the
crape garments outside, and the muffled voice
of Mrs. Badgery poured lamentably through
the keyhole.

"Do you mean to make that your
bedroom?" asked the voice on the other
side of the door. "Oh, don't, don't make
that your bedroom! I am going away directly—
but, oh pray, pray let that one room be sacred!
Don't sleep there! If you can possibly help
it, don't sleep there!"

I opened the window, and looked up and
down the road. If I had seen a policeman
within hail I should certainly have called
him in. No such person was visible. I shut
the window again, and warned Mrs. Badgery,
through the door, in my sternest tones, not
to interfere with my domestic arrangements.
"I mean to have my bedstead put up here,"
I said. "And what is more, I mean to sleep
here. And, what is more, I mean to snore
here!" Severe, I think, that last sentence?
It completely crushed Mrs. Badgery for the
moment. I heard the crape garments
rustling away from the door; I heard the muffled
groans going slowly and solemnly down the
stairs again.

In due course of time, I also descended to
the ground-floor. Had Mrs. Badgery really
left the premises? I looked into the front
parlour—empty. Back parlour—empty. Any
other room on the ground-floor? Yes; a
long room at the end of the passage. The
door was closed. I opened it cautiously, and
peeped in. A faint scream, and a smack of
two distractedly-clasped hands saluted my
appearance. There she was, again on the
camp-stool, again sitting exactly in the middle
of the floor.

"Don't, don't look in, in that way!" cried
Mrs. Badgery, wringing her hands. "I could
bear it in any other room, but I can't bear it
in this. Every Monday morning I looked
out the things for the wash in this room. He
was difficult to please about his linen; the
washerwoman never put starch enough into
his collars to satisfy him. Oh, how often and
often has he popped his head in here, as you
popped yours just now; and said, in his
amusing way, 'More starch!' Oh, how droll
he always was—how very, very droll in this
dear little back room!"

I said nothing. The situation had now got
beyond words. I stood with the door in my
hand, looking down the passage towards the
garden, and waiting doggedly for Mrs. Badgery
to go out. My plan succeeded. She rose,
sighed, shut up the camp-stool, stalked along
the passage, paused on the hall mat, said to
herself, "Sweet, sweet spot!" descended the
steps, groaned along the gravel-walk, and
disappeared from view at last through the
garden-door.

"Let her in again at your peril," said I to
the woman who kept the house. She
curtseyed and trembled. I left the premises,
satisfied with my own conduct under very
trying circumstances, delusively convinced
also that I had done with Mrs. Badgery.

The next day I sent in the furniture. The
most unprotected object on the face of this
earth is a house when the furniture is going
in. The doors must be kept open; and
employ as many servants as you may, nobody
can be depended on as a domestic sentry so
long as the van is at the gate. The confusion
of "moving in" demoralises the steadiest
disposition, and there is no such thing as a
properly-guarded post from the top of the
house to the bottom. How the invasion was
managed, how the surprise was effected, I
know not; but it is certainly the fact, that
when my furniture went in, the inevitable
Mrs. Badgery went in along with it.

I have some very choice engravings, after
the old masters; and I was first awakened
to a consciousness of Mrs. Badgery's presence
in the house while I was hanging up my
proof impression of Titian's Venus over the
front parlour fire-place. "Not there!" cried
the muffled voice imploringly. "His portrait
used to hang there. Oh, what a print—what
a dreadful, dreadful print to put where his
dear portrait used to be!" I turned round