“Eight dollars,” said I, rather shortly. Seven dollars was all I expected to get, but I put on one, so as to be beaten down without losing anything. “I can get eight from a single gentleman, the only objection being that he wants to keep a dog in the back yard.” “Oh, I’ll pay it,” said she, quickly taking out her pocketbook. “I’ll take it for six weeks, anyhow.” I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life. I made up my mind to read a penitential passage of Scripture as soon as I closed the bargain with her, but, remembering the Book says to be reconciled to your brother before laying your gift on the altar, I says, quick as I could, for fear that if I thought over it again I couldn’t be honest: “You shall have it for seven, my dear madame, if you’re going to stay so long, and I’ll do your washing without extra charge.” This last I said to punish myself for suspecting an innocent little lady. “Oh, thank you—thank you _very_ much,” said she, and then she began to cry. I knew _that_ wasn’t for effect, for we were already agreed on terms, and she had her pocketbook open showing more money that _I_ ever have at a time, unless it’s rent-day. She tried to stop crying by burying her face in her hands, and it made her look so much smaller and _so_ pitiful that I picked her right up, as if she was a baby, and kissed her. Then she cried harder, and I—a woman over forty, too—couldn’t find anything better to do than to cry with her. I knew her whole story within five minutes—knew it perfectly well before I’d fairly shown her the room and got it aired. They were from the West, and had been married about a year. She hadn’t a relative in the world, but _his_ folks had friends in Philadelphia, so he’d got a place as clerk in a big clothing factory, at twelve hundred dollars a year. They’d been keeping house, just as cozy as could be in four rooms, and were as happy as anybody in the world, when one night he didn’t come home. She was almost frantic about him all night long, and first thing in the morning she was at the factory. She waited until all the clerks got there, but George—his name was George Perry—didn’t come. The proprietor was a good-hearted man, and went with her to the police-office, and they telegraphed all over the city; but there didn’t seem to be any such man found dead or drunk, or arrested for anything. She hadn’t heard a word from him since. Her husband’s family’s friends were rich—the stuck up brutes!— but they seemed to be annoyed by her coming so often to ask if there wasn’t any other way of looking for him, so she, like the modest, frightened little thing she was, staid away from them. Then somebody told her that New York was the place everybody went to, so she sold all her furniture and pawned almost all her clothes, and came to New York with about fifty dollars in her pocket.