in a fury. There she was, still muffled up in
crape, still carrying her abominable camp-
stool. Before I could say a word in
remonstrance, six men in green baize aprons
staggered in with my sideboard, and Mrs.
Badgery suddenly disappeared. Had they
trampled her under foot, or crushed her in
the doorway? Though not an inhuman man
by nature, I asked myself those questions
quite composedly. No very long time elapsed
before they were practically answered in the
negative by the reappearance of Mrs. Badgery
herself, in a perfectly unruffled condition of
chronic grief. In the course of the day I had
my toes trodden on, I was knocked about by
my own furniture, the six men in baize
aprons dropped all sorts of small articles
over me in going up and down stairs; but
Mrs. Badgery escaped unscathed. Every
time I thought she had been turned out of
the house she proved, on the contrary, to be
groaning close behind me. She wept over
Mr. Badgery's memory in every room,
perfectly undisturbed to the last, by the chaotic
confusion of moving in. I am not sure, but
I think she brought a tin box of sandwiches
with her, and celebrated a tearful pic-nic of
her own in the groves of my front garden.
I say I am not sure of this; but I am
positively certain that I never entirely got rid of
her all day; and I know to my cost that she
insisted on making me as well acquainted
with Mr. Badgery's favourite notions and
habits as I am with my own. It may interest
the reader if I report that my taste in
carpets is not equal to Mr. Badgery's; that
my ideas on the subject of servants' wages
are not so generous as Mr. Badgery's; and
that I ignorantly persisted in placing a sofa
in the position which Mr. Badgery, in his
time, considered to be particularly fitted for
an arm-chair. I could go nowhere, look
nowhere, do nothing, say nothing, all that
day, without bringing the widowed incubus
in the crape garments down upon me
immediately. I tried civil remonstrances, I tried
rude speeches, I tried sulky silence—nothing
had the least effect on her. The memory of
Mr. Badgery was the shield of proof with
which she warded off my fiercest attacks.
Not till the last article of furniture had been
moved in, did I lose sight of her; and even
then she had not really left the house. One
of my six men in green baize aprons routed
her out of the back-garden area, where she
was telling my servants, with floods of tears,
of Mr. Badgery's virtuous strictness with his
housemaid in the matter of followers. My
admirable man in green baize courageously
saw her out, and shut the garden-door after
her. I gave him half-a-crown on the spot;
and if anything happens to him, I am ready
to make the future prosperity of his fatherless
family my own peculiar care.

The next day was Sunday. I attended
morning service at my new parish church.
A popular preacher had been announced, and
the building was crowded. I advanced a
little way up the nave, and looked to my
right, and saw no room. Before I could
look to my left, I felt a hand laid persuasively
on my arm. I turned round—and there was
Mrs. Badgery, with her pew-door open,
solemnly beckoning me in. The crowd had
closed up behind me; the eyes of a dozen
members of the congregation, at least, were
fixed on me. I had no choice but to save
appearances, and accept the dreadful invitation.
There was a vacant place next to the
door of the pew. I tried to drop into it, but
Mrs. Badgery stopped me. "His seat," she
whispered, and signed to rne to place myself
on the other side of her. It is unnecessary
to say that I had to climb over a hassock,
and that I knocked down all Mrs. Badgery's
devotional books before I succeeded in passing
between her and the front of the pew. She
cried uninterruptedly through the service;
composed herself when it was over; and
began to tell me what Mr. Badgery's opinions
had been on points of abstract theology.
Fortunately there was great confusion and
crowding at the door of the church; and I
escaped, at the hazard of my life, by running
round the back of the carriages. I passed
the interval between the services alone in
the fields, being deterred from going home by
the fear that Mrs. Badgery might have got
there before me.

Monday came. I positively ordered my
servants to let no lady in deep mourning
pass inside the garden-door, without first
consulting me. After that, feeling tolerably
secure, I occupied myself in arranging my
books and prints. I had not pursued this
employment much more than an hour, when
one of the servants burst excitably into the
room, and informed me that a lady in deep
mourning had been taken faint, just outside
my door, and had requested leave to come in
and sit down for a few moments. I ran
down the garden-path to bolt the door, and
arrived just in time to see it violently pushed
open by an officious and sympathising crowd.
They drew away on either side as they saw
me. There she was, leaning on the grocer's
shoulder, with the butcher's boy in attendance,
carrying her camp-stool! Leaving my
servants to do what they liked with her, I
ran back and locked myself up in my bedroom.
When she evacuated the premises, some
hours afterwards, I received a message of
apology, informing me that this particular
Monday was the sad anniversary of her
wedding-day, and that she had been taken
faint, in consequence, at the sight of her lost
husband's house.

Tuesday forenoon passed away happily,
without any new invasion. After lunch, I
thought I would go out and take a walk.
My garden-door has a sort of peep-hole in it,
covered with a wire grating. As I got close
to this grating, I thought I saw something
mysteriously dark on the outer side of it. I