May’s valet solved that difficulty by shouldering the leather receptacle and carrying it up himself. The room was large, airy, and neatly kept. A straw matting was on the floor, covered here and there with well-worn rugs; and from about the windows came a twittering of birds. All in it indicated, not a new and modern house, but the well-worn nest of a family that had been born, had cried, laughed, played, made love, and died, in every room. Yet there was no evidence of recent occupation; the room was innocent of those last touches which are the pride of the feminine housekeeper; curtains, splashers, anti-macassars, were few; and no twilled, frilled, or pleated things infested the windows, and impeded the entry of the outer air. May opened the door of a large closet; it was empty, save for a broad, white, chip hat of prehistoric fashion, and ribbons of faded rose-color; but, if it had belonged to a daughter of the house, it was evident that its owner was either dead or married, and her womanly activity was exercised in other locuses and focuses. No other manifestation of what Goethe (impatiently) calls the “eternal woman” was present; and May’s expression almost approached to a smile as he opened the door of the spacious bath-room, and noted the naked mantels and marble slabs, unencumbered by china dogs, translated vases, and other traps for the unwary. On the shelf was a noble pile of rough and manly towels, and as he turned the faucet, he found that the water was copious and cold. From all this you may infer that Mr. Austin May was a bachelor. I have committed myself to no such statement as yet, and May himself would have been the first to term your curiosity--at the present stage of your acquaintance with him--an impertinence. As he turned away from the bath-room the smile of satisfaction died away upon his lips. Mrs. Eastman was still standing at the door, the incarnation of the custodian, in iron-gray rigidity of dress, and equilateral triangularity of white _fichu_. “Everything seems to be all right, Mrs. Eastman,” said he, graciously. (Behold how simple are the needs of man--give them but fresh water, space, and peace, and their desires are filled; while womankind--are otherwise.) “Everything _is_ all right,” broke in Mrs. Eastman, like the offended Vestal deity, at a statement implying contrary possibilities. Then again she congealed. May looked at her more closely, with a slight shade of annoyance. How was he to get rid of this woman? “You must have had a sadly lonely life here, Mrs. Eastman,” said he, by way of placation. And lo! the flood-gates were loosened and the tide poured forth. Who ever could have suspected Mrs. Eastman of gregarious instinct? As well have fancied her loquacious. As Moses’s wand upon the rock of Horeb, so an adroit phrase addressed to womankind.