She settled her steel-bowed spectacles firmly on the wart and gazed at him.  “I believe you’re right,” she said, after a few moments of reflection.  “I can’t recall no story now where the villain was not foiled at last.  Let me see—­there was Lovely Lulu, or the Doctor’s Darling, and Margaret Merriman, or the Maiden’s Mad Marriage, and True Gold, or Pretty Crystal’s Love, and The American Countess, or Hearts Aflame, and this one I was just speakin’ of, Genevieve Carleton, or the Brakeman’s Bride.  In every one of ’em, the villain got his just deserts, though sometimes they was disjointed owin’ to the story bein’ broke off at the most interestin’ point and continued the followin’ week.”

“Well, if the villain is always foiled, you’re surely not afraid, are you?”

“I don’t know’s I’m afraid in the long run, but I don’t like to have you go through such things and be exposed to the temptations of a great city.”

“Why don’t you come with me, Mother, and keep house for me?  We can find a little flat somewhere, and——­”

“What on earth is that?”

[Sidenote:  Apartments and Flats]

“I’ve never been in one myself, but Miss Wynne said that, if you wanted to come, she would find us a flat, or an apartment.”

“What’s the difference between a flat and an apartment?”

“That’s what I asked her.  She said it was just the rent.  You pay more for an apartment than you do for a flat.”

“I wouldn’t want anything I had to pay more for,” observed Miss Mattie, stroking her chin thoughtfully.  “You ain’t told me what a flat is.”

“A few rooms all on one floor, like a cottage.  It’s like several cottages, all under one roof.”

“What do they want to cover the cottages with a roof for?  Don’t they want light and air?”

“You don’t understand, Mother.  Suppose that our house here was an apartment house.  The stairs would be shut off from these rooms and the hall would be accessible from the street.  Instead of having three rooms upstairs, there might be six—­one of them a kitchen and the others living-rooms and bedrooms.  Don’t you see?”

“You mean a kitchen on the same floor with the bedrooms?”

“Yes, all the rooms on one floor.”

“Just as if an earthquake was to jolt off the top of the house and shake all the bedrooms down here?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, then,” said Miss Mattie, firmly, “all I’ve got to say is that it ain’t decent.  Think of people sleepin’ just off kitchens and washin’ their faces and hands in the sink.”

“I think some of them must be very nice, Mother.  Miss Wynne expects to live in an apartment after she is married and she has a little one of her own now.  If you’ll come with me we’ll find some place that you’ll like.  I don’t want to leave you alone here.”

[Sidenote:  Under One Roof]

“No,” she answered, after due deliberation, “I reckon I’ll stay here.  You can’t transplant an old tree and you can’t take a woman who has lived all her life in a house and put her in a place where there are several cottages all under one roof with bedrooms off of kitchens and folks washin’ in the sinks.  Miss Wynne can do it if she likes, but I was brought up different.”