"You sha'n't have one morsel of food to-day, if you don't do this room better," a decided feminine voice was saying. "Now go right over it again." The clergyman stood silently gazing at the straight back of his hostess. She was dressed in a scant blue serge skirt, a man's coat, a man's hat, thick boots were on her feet, and she carried a riding-whip in her hand. Her hair was cut short, her sex would have been indeterminate to a stranger, but the clergyman knew her well as Miss Jane Gastonguay,--an eccentric, kind-hearted old maid, who loved to masquerade in semi-masculine garments. Presently the ceasing of the old man's flow of crocodile tears caused her to turn around. "Oh, you are here," she said, coolly, to the clergyman, "I just want some one in your profession to hear me register a vow to send this old fool back to the poorhouse, if he does not mend his ways. This room was to have been done by eight o'clock, and my fine gentleman here lies in bed and smokes instead of sweeping it,--some day he will burn us all up. You would think he was the millionaire and I the pauper. How old are you, idiot?" "Six--sixty," sobbed the old man. "That's a falsehood. Tell me the truth, quick now, or you will go right out of this house." "Six--six--ty--five, ma'am." "A mere boy,--only one year older than I am. I know an old man of eighty who would be glad to take your place. Haven't I fed and clothed you for years?" "Ye--yes, ma'am," he stammered. "And this is the way you serve me. Well, as I said before, if I have any more trouble with you, back you go to the poorhouse," and, loftily holding up her head, she swaggered from the room. "And you, too, Prosperity," she exclaimed, pausing in the hall to reprove the second grayhead, who was openly chuckling over his companion's discomfiture. "Your dusting lately is shameful; just look at this chair," and she ran her forefinger over the back of one standing near her. "Go get a cloth." The old man, with a ludicrous descent from gratification to mortification, fairly ran down the hall, while Miss Gastonguay preceded the clergyman into a music-room, where she seated herself on a piano stool and motioned him to a monk's bench. "I shall not detain you," he said, "I see you are going out." "No hurry," she replied, airily. "I am just going to try a new colt in the field yonder,--you want money, I suppose." "Not this time," he replied, in his smooth, polished tones. "I want to ask a favour of another order." "What is it?" she said, abruptly. "Have you heard of Justin Mercer's marriage?" "Good gracious, yes,--is this place so large that we should miss an important piece of gossip like that? The whole town is ringing with it." "Have you thought of calling on his wife?" "I-- Wherefore should I enter the doors of those sour-faced Puritans?" "The daughter-in-law is different." "Is she? I am glad to hear it."