From an aspect of dignified but undisguised economy which showed itself in her dress as well as in her limited quarters, I suspected a story of shipwrecked fortune, and determined to question our Landlady.  That worthy woman was delighted to tell the history of her most distinguished boarder.  She was, as I had supposed, a gentlewoman whom a change of circumstances had brought down from her high estate.

—­Did I know the Goldenrod family?—­Of course I did.—–­Well, the Lady, was first cousin to Mrs. Midas Goldenrod.  She had been here in her carriage to call upon her,—­not very often.—–­Were her rich relations kind and helpful to her?—­Well, yes; at least they made her presents now and then.  Three or four years ago they sent her a silver waiter, and every Christmas they sent her a boquet,—­it must cost as much as five dollars, the Landlady thought.

—­And how did the Lady receive these valuable and useful gifts?

—­Every Christmas she got out the silver waiter and borrowed a glass tumbler and filled it with water, and put the boquet in it and set it on the waiter.  It smelt sweet enough and looked pretty for a day or two, but the Landlady thought it wouldn’t have hurt ’em if they’d sent a piece of goods for a dress, or at least a pocket-handkercher or two, or something or other that she could ‘a’ made some kind of use of; but beggars must n’t be choosers; not that she was a beggar, for she’d sooner die than do that if she was in want of a meal of victuals.  There was a lady I remember, and she had a little boy and she was a widow, and after she’d buried her husband she was dreadful poor, and she was ashamed to let her little boy go out in his old shoes, and copper-toed shoes they was too, because his poor little ten—­toes—­was a coming out of ’em; and what do you think my husband’s rich uncle,—­well, there now, it was me and my little Benjamin, as he was then, there’s no use in hiding of it,—­and what do you think my husband’s uncle sent me but a plaster of Paris image of a young woman, that was,—­well, her appearance wasn’t respectable, and I had to take and wrap her up in a towel and poke her right into my closet, and there she stayed till she got her head broke and served her right, for she was n’t fit to show folks.  You need n’t say anything about what I told you, but the fact is I was desperate poor before I began to support myself taking boarders, and a lone woman without her—­her—­

The sentence plunged into the gulf of her great remembered sorrow, and was lost to the records of humanity.

—­Presently she continued in answer to my questions:  The Lady was not very sociable; kept mostly to herself.  The Young Girl (our Scheherezade) used to visit her sometimes, and they seemed to like each other, but the Young Girl had not many spare hours for visiting.  The Lady never found fault, but she was very nice in her tastes, and kept everything about her looking as neat and pleasant as she could.