But I did not want her to have any disagreeables, so I said-- "Perhaps we had better not have Mrs. Armstrong at all." "Oh, my dear," was Jane's reply, "why should my spite at that postscript turn the poor woman from a comfortable home? She shall come. We will charge three guineas a week for the two." "But that is awfully little," I replied. "It is quite as much as they will pay for the attic, and they will be awfully worrying, both of them. I feel it in my bones beforehand. They'll be much more particular than the people who pay five guineas a head for rooms on the first floor. Mark my words, Miss Wickham, it is the attic boarders who will give the trouble, but we cannot help that, for they are sure and certain, and are the backbone of the establishment. I'll write to Mrs. Armstrong, and say that if they can give us suitable references they can come for a week, in order that both parties may see if they are pleased with the other." "Shall I write, or will you?" I asked. "Well, my dear, after a bit I shall be very pleased if you will take the correspondence, which is sure to be a large item, but just at first I believe that I can put things on a more business-like footing." "Thank you very much," I said in a relieved tone. "That letter goes to-night," said Jane. She took a Swan fountain pen from its place by her waist, scribbled a word or two on the envelope of Mrs. Armstrong's letter, and laid it aside. "Now I have inquiries from a most genteel party, a Captain and Mrs. Furlong: he is a retired army man, and they are willing to pay five guineas a week between them for a comfortable bedroom." "But surely that is very little," I said again. "It is a very fair sum out of their pockets, Miss Wickham, and I think we can afford to give them a nice room looking south on the third floor, not on the second floor, and, of course, not on the first; but on the third floor we can give them that large room which is decorated with the sickly green. It will turn them bilious, poor things, if they are of my way of thinking." Accordingly Captain and Mrs. Furlong were also written to that evening, to the effect that they might enter the sacred precincts of 17 Graham Square as soon as they pleased. Two or three other people had also made inquiries, and having talked their letters over and arranged what replies were to be sent, Miss Mullins, after a certain hesitation which caused me some small astonishment, took up her final letter. "A gentleman has written who wishes to come," she said, "and I think he would be a desirable inmate." "A gentleman!" cried mother, "a gentleman alone?" "Yes, madam, an unmarried gentleman."