The Disagreeable Woman. Alger Horatio Jr.

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      "Oh, you naughty flatterer!" said the widow, graciously. "Not that I believe you. Men are such deceivers."

      "Do ladies never deceive?"

      "You ought to have been a lawyer, you ask such pointed questions. Really, Dr. Fenwick, I am quite afraid of you."

      "There's no occasion. I am quite harmless, I do assure you. The time to be afraid of me is when you call me in as a physician."

      "Excuse me, doctor, but Mrs. Gray is about to make an announcement."

      We both turned our glances upon the landlady.

      CHAPTER VI.

      COUNT PENELLI

      Mrs. Gray was a lady of the old school. She was the widow of a merchant supposed to be rich, and in the days of her magnificence had lived in a large mansion on Fourteenth Street, and kept her carriage. When her husband died suddenly of apoplexy his fortune melted away, and she found herself possessed of expensive tastes, and a pittance of two thousand dollars.

      She was practical, however, and with a part of her money bought an old established boarding-house on Waverley Place. This she had conducted for ten years, and it yielded her a good income. Her two thousand dollars had become ten, and her future was secure.

      Mrs. Gray did not class herself among boarding-house keepers. Her boarders she regarded as her family, and she felt a personal interest in each and all. When they became too deeply in arrears, they received a quiet hint, and dropped out of the pleasant home circle. But this did not happen very often.