To me this seemed such a very low idea, and such a desecration of a sacred spot, that if I had owned any money to be sure of, I would have offered hundreds to prevent it. But I found myself now in a delicate state of mind concerning money, having little of my own, and doubting how much other people might intend for me. So that I durst not offer to buy land and a house without any means to pay. And it was not for that reason only that Betsy and I kept ourselves quiet. We knew that any stir in this little place about us--such as my name might at once set going--would once for all destroy all hope of doing good by coming. Betsy knew more of such matters than I did, besides all her knowledge of the place itself, and her great superiority of age; therefore I left to her all little management, as was in every way fair and wise. For Mrs. Strouss had forsaken a large and good company of lodgers, with only Herr Strouss to look after them--and who was he among them? If she trod on one side of her foot, or felt a tingling in her hand, or a buzzing in her ear, she knew in a moment what it was--of pounds and pounds was she being cheated, a hundred miles off, by foreigners! For this reason it had cost much persuasion and many appeals to her faithfulness, as well as considerable weekly payment, ere ever my good nurse could be brought away from London; and perhaps even so she never would have come if I had not written myself to Mrs. Price, then visiting Betsy in European Square, that if the landlady was too busy to be spared by her lodgers, I must try to get Lord Castlewood to spare me his housekeeper. Upon this Mrs. Strouss at once declared that Mrs. Price would ruin every thing; and rather than that--no matter what she lost--she herself would go with me. And so she did, and she managed very well, keeping my name out of sight (for, happen what might, I would have no false one); and she got quiet lodgings in her present name, which sounded nicely foreign; and the village being more agitated now about my father's material house, and the work they were promised in pulling it down, than about his shattered household, we had a very favorable time for coming in, and were pronounced to be foreigners who must not be allowed to run up bills. This rustic conclusion suited us quite well, and we soon confirmed it unwittingly, Betsy offering a German thaler and I an American dollar at the shop of the village chandler and baker, so that we were looked upon with some pity, and yet a kind desire for our custom. Thus, without any attempt of ours at either delusion or mystery, Mrs. Strouss was hailed throughout the place as “Madam Straw,” while I, through the sagacity of a deeply read shoe-maker, obtained a foreign name, as will by-and-by appear.