It was either that afternoon or the following one that Dr. Lewis came up to the Squire and old Coney as they were talking together in the road. He told them that he could not possibly stay in the house; he should be laid up if he did; he must go away until the smell of the paint was gone. That he was looking ill, both saw; and they believed he did not complain without cause. The question was, where could he go? Mr. Coney hospitably offered him house-room; but the doctor, while thanking him, said the smell might last a long time, and he should prefer to be independent. He had been thinking of going with Anne to Worcester for a time. Did they know of lodgings there? "Better go to an hotel," said the Squire. "No trouble at an hotel." "But hotels are not always comfortable. I cannot feel at home in them," argued the poor doctor. "And they cost too much besides." "You might chance to hit upon lodgings where you wouldn't be any more comfortable, Lewis. And they'd be very dull for you." "There's Lake's boarding-house," put in old Coney, whilst the doctor was looking blank and helpless. "A boarding-house? Ay, that might do, if it's not a noisy one." "It's not noisy at all," cried the Squire. "It's uncommonly well conducted: sometimes there are not three visitors in the house. You and Miss Lewis would be comfortable there." And for Lake's boarding-house Dr. Lewis and Anne took their departure on the very next day. If they had only foreseen the trouble their stay at it would lead to! * * * * * Lake's boarding-house stood near the cathedral. A roomy house, with rather shabby furniture in it: but in boarding-houses and lodgings people don't, as a rule, look for gilded chairs and tables. Some years before, Mrs. Lake, the wife of a professional man, and a gentlewoman, was suddenly left a widow with four infant children, boys, and nothing to keep them upon. What to do she did not know. And it often puzzles me to think what such poor ladies _do_ do, left in similar straits. She had her furniture; and that was about all. Friends suggested that she should take a house in a likely situation, and try for some lady boarders; or perhaps for some of the college boys, whose homes lay at a distance. Not to make too long a story of it, it was what she did do. And she had been in the house ever since, struggling on (for these houses mostly do entail a struggle), sometimes flourishing in numbers, sometimes down in the dumps with empty rooms. But she had managed to bring the children up: the two elder ones were out in the world, the two younger were still in the college school. Mrs. Lake was a meek little woman, ever distracted with practical cares, especially as to stews and gravies: Miss Dinah Lake (her late husband's sister, and a majestic lady of middle age), who lived with her, chiefly saw to the company.