"Possibly you don't understand yourself, Miss Mayhew." "I understand that I have had a miserable day, and I hope I may never see another like it. Good-night, sir." Chapter XIII. Nature's Broken Promise. Van Berg had been left to himself but a little time before Stanton and Mr. Burleigh came out upon the piazza, and the three gentlemen sat down for a quiet chat. "Well," remarked mine host, with a sigh of relief such as a pilot might heave after taking his ship round a perilous point; "well, thanks to Miss Burton's good sense, the affair has ended without any trouble. In a house like this, 'Satan is finding mischief still' whenever my back is turned, and sometimes he threatens to get up a row right under my nose, as in this instance. I was a 'blarsted fool,' as our English friends have it, not to know that Mrs. Chint's drama, although beginning in comedy, might end in tragedy of my losing some good paying boarders. Still further did I demonstrate the length of my ears by even imagining it possible that Miss Burton would take five hundred, or five hundred thousand dollars in any such circumstances. But the whole thing was done in a jiffy, and Mrs. Chints was possessed to have her 'tableau vivant.' Lively picture wasn't it? Still, if Miss Mayhew, when appealed to by Mrs. Chints, had confirmed my doubts, I would have tried to stop the nonsense at any cost." "Did Miss Mayhew advise the step?" asked Stanton. "Oh, no! She was non-committal. She acted as if it were none of her affair, save as it might afford her a little amusement. But these rows are no light matters to us poor publicans, who must please every one and keep the whole menagerie in order. Mr. Chints was swearing up and down his room that he had been made a fool of. Mrs. Chints was for leaving to-morrow morning, declaring that she would not endure such airs from a school-teacher. They are rich and have a number of friends who are coming soon, and so my mind was full of 'strange oaths' also, at my prospective loss, when this blessed little woman appears, taps at their door, enters like the angel into the lion's den, and shuts their mouths by some magic all her own. And now they're going to stay; Mr. Chints will give the five hundred to the Children's Aid Society, all is serene and I'm happy, so much so that I'll smoke another of your good cigars, Mr. Stanton." "Certainly, half-a-dozen if you wish. How do you imagine she quieted the unruly beasts?"