Rose was driven to the conclusion that Dr. Harry Ironside must have found furnished lodgings such a pandemonium, that he was induced to believe a select boarding-house must be a paradise by comparison. It was comical how it had all come about. It did seem as if Rose's heedlessness, if she had been heedless in drifting without an introduction into an acquaintance with one of Annie's doctors, was likely to bear good fruits to Mrs. Jennings, among other people. Hester had been looking worried lately, and had not scrupled to give as the reason of her pre-occupation--family affairs not prosperous. The whole of the house was not let. Old Mr. and Mrs. Foljambe had actually been unreasonable enough to try to exchange the best rooms, which they had chosen for themselves in the winter for shabbier, cheaper quarters during the summer, when the husband and wife might be occasionally absent paying visits. Old Susan, in her black cap and gold-rimmed spectacles, was especially triumphant in seeing the scheme balked, and confided her mingled exultation and indignation to Rose, who had helped to balk the schemers. The confidential family servant even forgot some of her polite mannerliness in her excitement. "Now, Miss Millar, them Foljambes has done for themselves; serve them right for seeking to get a catch from a friend like Missus, as is that kind to her boarders, which you can testify, Miss; they might be her own flesh and blood. Bless you! she'll never make a rap by keeping boarders. She never grudges them anythink, and would sooner deny herself than that they should go without their fancies. But there, now, that fine young gentleman you brought," went on Susan with the slightest respectful significance, "I'm sure we're greatly indebted to you, Miss--speaks as if he meant to stay on here with his sister for the present. He has taken our largest rooms off our hands, so that we may be easy on that head, and I for one won't be sorry if Mr. and Mrs. Foljambe ain't able to shift back into them at their will and pleasure. The young gent, as is a gent, had no hargle-bargling about terms. He was satisfied to pay what we asked, because he knew that though it was not a common boarding-house, and though it was no more than right that he and his sister should pay for the privilege of being under the roof of a real lady like Missus, we were not the sort to ask more than our due."