Mr. Ralph Renoux lived by his wits: i. e., he kept a boarding-house; _taking in_ any number of ladies and gentlemen, who, in the philanthropic language of his advertisement, “pined for the comforts and elegancies of a home.” Mr. Renoux’s house was at the court-end of the city; his drawing-room was unexceptionably furnished, and himself, when “made up,” after ten o’clock in the morning, quite _comme il faut_. Mrs. Renoux never appeared; being, in the pathetic words of Mr. Renoux, “in a drooping, invalid state:” nevertheless, she might be seen, by the initiated, haunting the back stairs and entries, and with flying cap-strings, superintending kitchen-cabinet affairs. Mrs. Renoux was the unhappy mother of three unmarried daughters, with red hair, and tempers to match; who languished over Byron, in elegant _negligées_, of a morning, till after the last masculine had departed; then, in curl-papers and calico long-shorts, performed, for the absentees, the duty of chambermaids; peeping into valises, trunks, bureaus, cigar boxes and coat pockets, and replenishing their perfumed bottles, from the gentlemen’s toilet stands, with the most perfect _nonchalance_. At dinner, they emerged from their chrysalis state, into the most butterfly gorgeousness, and exchanged the cracked treble, with which they had been ordering round the over-tasked maid-of-all-work, as they affectionately addressed “Papa.” * * * * * At the commencement of my story, Renoux was as happy as a kitten with its first mouse--having entrapped, with the bait of his alluring advertisement, a widow lady with one child. “The comforts and elegancies of a home;”--it was just what the lady was seeking:--how very fortunate!