and gaudily-ringed hands.  The kitchen, apparently, was not ventilated; and a mingled odor, beyond the analysis of chemistry, came up into the entry and pervaded the hot and confined atmosphere of the room.  The landlady, a stout and resolute woman, entered with a studied smile, which changed gradually to a cold civility.  Her eyes, unlike Banquo’s, had a deal of speculation in them.  One might read the price-current in the busy wrinkles.  Around her pursed-up mouth lurked the knowledge of the number of available slices in a sirloin,—­the judgment of the lump of butter that should leave no margin for prodigality.  Warfare with market-men, shrewish watchfulness over servants, economy scarcely removed from meanness at the table, all were clearly indicated in her flushed and hard-featured face.

Alice was not familiar with such people; but she shrank from her by instinct, as the first chicken fled from the first hawk.  The landlady, on her part, was equally suspicious, and, finding that Alice had no relatives to depend upon, and that she expected to earn her own living, was not at all solicitous to increase the number of her boarders.

“It’s pootty hard to tell who’s who, now-a-days,” she said.  “I have to pay cash for all I set on the table, and I can’t trust to fair promises.  Perhaps, though, you’ve got some cousin that looks arter your bills?”

The flute-player exchanged knowing glances with the seamstresses.

All-unconscious of the taunt, Alice simply replied,—­

“No, I have told you that I have no one to depend upon.”

The landlady’s mouth was primly set, and she merely exclaimed,—­

“Oh! indeed!”

“I think I’ll look further,” said Alice.  “Good-morning.”

“Good-morning.”

Half-suppressed chuckles followed her, as she left the room.  Sorely grieved and indignant, she took her way to another house.  Fortune this time favored her.  The landlady, a kind-hearted woman, was in mourning for her only daughter, and with the first words she heard she felt her heart drawn to the lovely and soft-voiced stranger.  Without any offensive inquiries, Alice was at once received, and an upper room assigned to her.  After sending for her trunk, she dressed for dinner.

The table presented specimens of all the familiar characters of boarding-house life.  There was the lawyer, sharp, observant, talkative, ready for a joke or an argument.  There was the solemn man of business, who ate from a sense of duty, and scowled at the lawyer’s bad puns.  Near him, with an absurdly youthful wig and opaque goggles, sat the Unknown; his name, occupation, resources, and tastes alike a profound mystery.  Several dapper clerks, whose right ears drooped from having been used as pen-racks, wearing stunning cravats, outre brooches and shirt-studs, learned in the lore of “two-forty” driving, were ranged opposite.  Then there was the jolly widow, who was the admiration of men of her