Perhaps for old acquaintance' sake, perhaps because she had some apartments vacant, Mrs. Jones appeared to regard the proposition with no disfavour; and began to talk of her house's accommodation. "The rooms on the first floor are very good and well furnished," she said. "When I was about it, Mr. Yorke, I thought I might as well have things nice as not, one finds the return; and the drawing-room floor naturally gets served the best. There's a piano in the front room, and the bed in the back room is excellent." "They'd be just the thing for me," cried Roland, rising to walk about in pleasurable excitement. "What's the rent?" "They are let for a pound a week. Mr.----" "That'll do I can pay it," said he eagerly. "I don't play the piano myself; but it may be useful if I give a party. You'll cook for me?" "Of course we'll cook," said Mrs. Jones. "But I was about to tell you that those rooms are let to a clergyman. If you----" Roland had come to an abrupt anchor at the edge of the table, and the look of blank dismay on his face was such as to cut short Mrs. Jones's speech. "What's the matter?" she asked. "Mrs. J., I couldn't give it; I was forgetting. They are to pay me a pound a-week at Greatorex's; but I can't spend it all in lodgings, I'm afraid. There'll be other things wanted." "Other things!" ejaculated Mrs. Jones. "I should think there would be other things. Food, and drink, and firing, and light, and wear and tear of clothes, and washing; and a hundred extras beside." Roland sat in perplexity. Ways and means seem to have grown dark together. "Couldn't you let me one room? A room with a turn-up bedstead in it, Mrs. Jenkins, or something of that? Couldn't you take the pound a-week, and do for me?" "I don't know but I might make some such arrangement, and let you have the front parlour," she slowly said. "We've got a Scripture reader in the back one." Roland started up impulsively to look at the front parlour, intending to take it, off hand. As they quitted the room--which was built out at the back, on the staircase that led down to the kitchen--Roland saw a tall, fair, good-looking young woman, who stopped and asked some question of Mrs. Jones. Which that lady answered sharply. "I have no time to talk about trifles now, Alletha." "Who's that?" cried Roland, as they entered the parlour: a small room with a dark paper and faded red curtains. "It's my sister, Mr. Yorke." "I say, Mrs. J., this is a stunning room," exclaimed Roland, who was in that eager mood, of his, when all things looked couleur-de-rose. "Can I come in today?" "You can tomorrow, if we agree. That sofa lets out into a bedstead at night. You must not get into my debt, though, Mr. Yorke," she added, in the plain, straightforward way that was habitual with her. "I couldn't afford it, and I tell you so beforehand."