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OUR FIRST LODGERS.

I HAVE always held an opinion that young women in a respectable sphere of life, when left unprovided for by the death of parents, require more sympathy than any other class. It may be they have a little money it is to be hoped that daughters, so left, generally have. This they proceed to embark in various ways, according to their capacities, and the notions they have imbibed in their station of society. Some try to establish a school, some sink their capital in setting-up a business, a Berlin-wool shop, a stationer's and library, or the like, some put their little bit of money out, and rely on the interest for clothes, whilst they seek to go out as nursery-governess or companion. And thus, in various ways, all try to obtain an honest livelihood. But let the reader be very sure that there are few of these unprotected women but have a crushing weight of struggle and sorrow. Anxious perplexity, pinching want, heart-breaking care, these are often theirs: and for many there is no turn, no worldly rest, till they find it in the grave.

I can feel for them, for did I not, for several years, I and my sister, struggle on, fighting our way with disappointment and non-success? Yet we never were so badly off as many, and in time God saw fit to crown our efforts with plenty. It was in 1836, and I was about thirtyone, that we had to turn our attention to getting our own living. Part of our mother's income had died with her, and all we had was 500l. each. And that is more than falls to many orphans. One sister, much younger than ourselves, had married a medical gentleman, and gone to settle in a distant part of the kingdom, and I and Lucy cast about in our minds what we should turn to. A ladies' boarding-school appeared to us the most congenial, and we were, I think, though I'm sure I say it in all modesty, more suitable for the charge than are some who undertake it. My learning was but little, and of the plainest sort, but I was (I hope) kind, just, and considerate; of calm, steady character and manners. Lucy was merrier than I, and she excelled in grand learning, such as astronomy, the use of the globes, elegant composition, with music, and other accomplishments, suitable to teach to little gentlewomen. We both felt that we had the qualifications and the will essential to do our full duty to those children who might be confided to our care: so we determined on our plan.

The first step was to find a suitable house and neighbourhood. We had hitherto, at least for the last many years, lived in the country, where there was no scope for such an undertaking, and several friends advised us to turn our thoughts to the vicinity of London, which we did. But the trouble we had! though the metropolis abounds in suburbs. Some we found overstocked with schools, some localities were not deemed highly healthy, and some had no suitable house that we could rent. We did fix ourselves at last, after spending a purse of money over those whirling omnibuses. I will not name the exact situation, for we are in the same house still, and I do not care that all the world should read these struggles, and know that they apply to us. It was a capital house, large and convenient; enclosed from the high road by a wall, with a pretty garden in front and a playground behind. We paid 80%. a year for it-a rent that

frightened us; and if it looked formidable in perspective, what was it when it came near? I can safely say that quarter-day for many years never drew near but it brought to us a heart-sickening. And there were the taxes in addition. After taking the house, the next step was to furnish it. We had most of the furniture from our old home, but it was the worse for wear, and the little which had filled a small house was lost in our large one. So we bought new for the drawing-room, and for the children's bedroom that was to be, with desks and forms for the schoolroom, disposing the old about the house as we best could; and occasionally buying, as time went on, some next to indispensable article, as we thought we could spare the money.

Of course we had sent out cards and advertised, and then we sat down in our house and waited for pupils. The first quarter we received some demands for circulars, but nothing came of it: the next we had three day-scholars, two sisters and another. I then took the resolution to call at the principal houses in the neighbourhood, and urge our hope of their patronage. Whether they liked my appearance I do not know, but soon after that we had eleven day-scholars and five boarders, so we thought success was coming all at once, and I believe had certain visions of retiring with a fortune. But the years went on, and we found success was not so certain.

It could not be strictly said we did not succeed; but we did not succeed sufficiently to pay our expenses and live, and our little stock of capital was often drawn upon. And that heavy rent! Our numbers fluctuated much: one half year we should have a large school, the next it would be a small one. Many an anxious conversation did I and Lucy have; many an hour of more anxious thought, many a sleepless night. To sink into debt and difficulty; to spend the last shilling of our capital in striving to avert it; to find our efforts fruitless, our money gone, and we turned from our present shelter, from our poor means of living, without any definite prospect of finding another!-these visions disturbed our rest continually. Oh, God pity all who are struggling as we were to keep up appearances and earn a respectable living, and who find their hopes and their means grow less day by day!

"I have a scheme running in my head,” Lucy said to me, one evening; "suppose we let lodgings?"

"Let lodgings!" I ejaculated.

"Our drawing-room and one or two bedrooms. We can give up our own and go up-stairs, and there's the one we had fitted up for that parlour-boarder. Why not?"

"But it will not do to let lodgings in a ladies' school, one of our class," I returned. "Such a thing was never heard of. All the parents would object to it."

"Most of them would never know it," answered Lucy. "It cannot be any possible detriment to the pupils-make no difference to them whatever. We might easily get thirty shillings a week for the three rooms, be at no outlay, and, if we had the luck of quiet people, very little trouble."

Thirty shillings a week! It would go far towards the rent. "I will sleep upon it," I said to Lucy.

I did. And the next day we got some cards written in text-hand,

"Genteel Apartments," and gave them to our greengrocer and stationer to display in their shops; for, of course, we dared not have such an intimation stuck on our own gate or hanging up outside the wall.

The cards were out three weeks and not a soul came. We were in despair. But one day Sarah, our servant, came to the door of the schoolroom and beckoned me out.

"It's some folks after the rooms, ma'am," she whispered. "They look likely people." Sarah was more anxious on the point, I think, than we

were.

I went up to the drawing-room, and two ladies rose at my entrance. Agreeable in person they were, and neatly dressed in mourning. The elder was about three or four-and-thirty, a rosy-cheeked woman, with quick dark eyes; the other, who was more delicate-looking, and a little younger, was her sister.

"You have apartments to let, we hear," said the former, handing me a card, "and we are in search of some." I glanced down at it-" Mrs. Archer."

"I beg pardon, ma'am," I said, "No," she replied.

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are you a widow ?"

My husband is abroad."

"Because we should decline to take a gentleman: it would not be deemed suitable for a school. Only ladies."

"Well, he is abroad," she repeated; "it is only for ourselves. Can we see the rooms ?"

"This is the sitting-room," I said, "and one bedroom opens from it. The other"

"We only require one bedroom," she interrupted, as she rose to go with me into it.

Our bargain was soon concluded. They took the two rooms at twentyfive shillings per week, and promised to come in on the morrow. "What extras will there be ?" inquired the younger lady, Miss Graves.

"Extras!" I repeated, "not any. Except-I believe it is customary -some little gratuity to the servant." I had not been in the habit of letting lodgings.

"What about the linen; are we to find it?" asked Lucy, when I told her of our success.

"The linen!" I exclaimed, dubiously, "I forgot it completely. I never said a word about it."

"Nor the ladies?"

"Nor the ladies. I remember they said they had their own spoons." "Then they take it for granted we find it, no doubt. Well, it will not much matter, either way. Did you ask for references, Hester?"

I really had not; I was obliged to confess it; and Lucy laughed. I, who was generally over-cautious!

These ladies came, and for several weeks things went on with satisfaction, they paying their money regularly. Then they began to grow behindhand, and made excuses from time to time, which seemed to us very plausible. But when the weeks went on, and on, and there was no money at all coming forth, I and Lucy grew uneasy. The debt amounted to nearly 97., and we had looked to it to help out our coming quarter's

rent.

I was in the kitchen one morning, making some apple-dumplings for dinner, when Sarah, who stood by me paring apples, began to talk. "I think them are queer customers we have got hold of, ma'am," she said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, for one thing, I fancy they have come to the end of their tether, and haven't got neither cross nor coin to bless themselves with. They are living now upon a'most nothing. And where are their gone to ?"

"Their spoons!"

spoons

"The four table-spoons put on their table every day for dinner. It's a good month since the two first disappeared-that handsome silver cream-jug vanished about the same time-and now the two last is gone. When I was a laying the cloth yesterday for dinner-them precious herrings they bought-I went on, a hunting for the spoons, and Miss Graves said, 'Oh, I have got them. I'll put them on the table myself presently, Sarah!' But none came down to be washed."

"Good gracious, Sarah! where do you think they have gone to?" "Well," said Sarah, who was worth her weight in gold for an honest, hard-working servant, though a free, rough-speaking one, "I should say they have gone to my uncle's."

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"Dear, dear!" I ejaculated, for I did not affect to misunderstand her, are they reduced to such straits as that?"

"Law, ma'am ! let 'em hope they may never be reduced to worse," retorted Sarah. "You don't know the schemes and contrivances for getting along in London, when one's hard up. It's a mercy there's such things as uncles to go to. Since the baker would not leave the bread on credit, our two ladies don't take in half enough to feed 'em. They have not had meat, neither, for three days, nor nothing to substitute for it but them six herrings yesterday: which was anything but of the freshest, as my nose told me in cleaning 'em. Miss Graves-it's she as generally speaks-is always ready with excuses; they've got colds, and can't eat, or they've got this, or got that."

"Do they owe much to the baker?"

"Five shillings, odd. He's a cautious man is our baker, and says he never trusts no lodgers. And now," added Sarah, stopping in her paring, and looking at me, "they don't take in no milk."

I went on, mixing my crust, and ruminating. I felt much sorrow for them, for I was sure they were not systematic deceivers, and I cannot but say I felt for my own pocket. I now looked upon the money as being as good as lost, and we wanted it badly.

"I should like to know what they mean to do for coals," resumed Sarah; "there ain't above a couple of scuttlefuls left. They'll be wanting us to lend 'em some, but if we do, we may whistle for 'em back again. Haven't I pared enough yet, missis ?"

I declare I had been paying no attention to the apples, and Sarah had done too many. So, to prevent waste, I thought I would make a pie and use them up. Popping my dumplings, when they were ready, into the iron pot, I got down the flour-jar again.

What with this, and slicing and salting red cabbages for pickling,

VOL. XXXIX.

which I was doing that morning, it struck one before I had well finished. I told Sarah to dish up the dinner.

It was Irish stew we had that day, and the girl got the great hashdish and put it on the table, and then, taking the large saucepan from the fire, turned the greater portion of its contents into the dish. I went inside the pantry, to put away some of the things I had been using, when Miss Graves came into the kitchen, nearly running against Sarah and her hash-dish, who was just going out of it.

Miss Graves came up to the fire, not seeing me. And oh! the pinching look of care and want that her face wore! I wondered I had never noticed it before. She looked, with eager eyes, into the saucepan which Sarah had lodged, without its lid, on the fender, and then turned away, as if she would shut out its sight. On the table there lay a little heap of stew, splashed there by Sarah when pouring it out, and she stole to the table and caught this up greedily with her finger, and ate it. I heard Sarah coming back again, and had to come out of my hiding-placethough indeed I had not gone in for hiding. She started when she saw me, and her face turned crimson. I made believe not to have seen her till then.

"Is it you, ma'am?" I said. "What a cold day! Pray take care of your sleeve against the table: something seems to have been spilt on it. I hope it has not touched it."

"Oh no," she said, brushing away at her right-hand cuff, with a

nervous movement.

"Some of them young misses jumped about when they saw and smelt the Irish stew," observed Sarah, when she entered. "It's a rare favourite dish of theirn."

"I don't wonder at that, when it smells as savoury as yours," remarked Miss Graves.

"I looked a little to it myself to-day, and put in a bit of thyme: that's a great improvement," I said. "Don't you think so, ma'am?" "I don't know," she answered. "I don't think we ever put thyme in

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"Then if you'll allow me, I'll send you up a little plate of this to taste," I said to her. For I could not bear to think that we were going to eat our fill of this nice dish, and they should only smell and long for it.

"Oh, thank you," she stammered, her face going crimson again, "but -the trouble

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"Don't mention it, pray," I interrupted; "its no trouble. Sarah, bring me in that little dish."

I took my place at the head of the schoolroom-table, and Sarah, looking as demure as if she understood nothing, brought in the dish. I heaped it with the stew, and sent it up.

But of course I could not do this every day, and I fear circumstances grew straiter with our lodgers. Sarah was frequently opening her budget of wonders as to what they did, but I paid little heed to her, for they were not, just now, in her good graces, not having, for a long while, given her any gratuity-a neglect sure to excite the ire of a servant. One evening, a day or two after we had broken up for the Christmas holidays, she came bounding into the room, with eager, wild words. Lucy and I

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