"I ought to say here, that in the last year I had two or three families in the house for a short time. I don't know what these real wives thought of me; that I was a termagant probably; but they were not the kind of women I could talk to about myself, and I made no confidences. A plan was maturing in my mind that was to make it a matter of indifference what any one thought. I had relinquished the idea of getting money enough together to make a sure start in California, and was only waiting to have enough to take me out of the country in any way that I could go cheapest. Another necessary point to gain was secrecy. That could not be gained while I was surrounded by boarders, nor while Mr. Seabrook was in the house, and I resolved to be rid of both." "Oh," I cried, delighted and relieved, "how _did_ you manage that?" "I am going to tell you by how simple an expedient. _I starved them out!_" "How strange that in all those years you never thought of that," I said laughing. "But, then, neither did Homer's heroine, who kept a first-class free boarding house for twice or thrice as long as you. Do tell me how you accomplished the feat of clearing your house." "It is not quite true that I had not thought of it; but I had not dared to do it. Besides, I wanted to get some money, if possible. Perhaps I should not have done it at the time I did, had not a little help come to me in the shape of real friends. I was all the time like a wild bird in a cage, and the continual attempts to escape I was making, only bruised my wings. It occurred to me one day to go to a certain minister who had lately come to Portland, and whose looks pleased me, as did his wife's, and tell them my story. This I did. "Instead of receiving it as fiction, or doubting the strange parts of it in a way to make me wish I had never spoken of them, they manifested the greatest interest and sympathy, and promised me any assistance they could give. This was the first recognition I had gotten from anyone as being what I was; a woman held in bondage worse than that of African slavery, by a man to whom she owed nothing, and in the midst of a free, civilized, and Christian community. They were really and genuinely shocked, and firmly determined to help me. I told them all the difficulties in the way, and of the expedient I had almost decided upon, to free my house from every one; for I thought that when his income stopped, Mr. Seabrook would be forced to go away, and seek some other means of living. They agreed with me that there appeared no better way, and I decided to attempt it.