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Show spent my last forty years more or less in boarding houses, 1 am better prepared to observe any of those little restrictions which are always necessary, than is, perhaps, the average person." He checked her speech with a rise of his hand. "I understand that there will be inconveniences, such are unavoidable,-and the board may not be of the best,-don't apologize on that account: so long as I have a place that an old bachelor like me can deceive into calling home,-I am content." In ending he bowed once more, courteously."But sir, you are mistaken; this is not an ordinary board-in house-""Ah," he broke in with a knowing smile. "That is what they all say. Yet I am quite willing to agree with you, Mrs. Huggins."The lady bit her lip again, but composing herself, she said quietly, "I am not Mrs. Huggins. Nor is this a boarding" place,-"The would-be boarder looked at her, astonished, bewildered. "Then, madam, why that sign ? Explain the meaning of it,-Huggins House. If it is less a boarding house than the Red Star,-then why Huggins House?" he asked incoherently."Allow me to explain. You would not be the sort of person we could take-¦""But I am Irish," he said with a manner which implied, -What more could you ask?"But-""But my dear madam, I promise you that you will never regret having let me come. If you had been single, madam, as I, living a lonely, loveless life,-to find a place at last after years of restless shifting from one place to another, each worsethan the one before,-to find, I say, at last a place with a spirit of home about it,-you would understand what it means to be turned away." He cleared his throat and looked hard at the knob of his cane. Thus he missed seeing' the moisture that sprang to the little lady's eyes and the sympathetic curve to her mouth. But she noted the kind wrinkles about his brown eyes, the high brow with the iron-grey hair, the straight nose, the mouth with an almost childlike expression about it. His shoulders were stooped a little, but his carriage, his manner, was that of the thorough gentleman."Perhaps,"-a few lines crept into her forehead as she debated anxiously with herself. "Perhaps they wouldn't mind. Yes,"-she hesitated. "I guess-you may step in if you please," she answered at length and held the door open somewhat nervously for him to enter."Allow me first, madam, to give you my card." The old gentleman repeated the name as he handed it to her, proudly. "Muggins. Irish, too, you understand, by direct descent. We Mugginses have always held it proud to be one of that staunch, individual race, in spite of the slurs cast upon us by the envious. I am doubly glad, therefore, to become the inmate of a worthy lady's house, who is not only of the same nationality, but whose name comes so nearly being my own. Huggins, Muggins,-remarkable coincidence that,-Huggins, Muggins !"But the little lady was vanishing up the darkened hall, her shoulders shaken a trifle with a weak cough. The old gentleman set aside his cane and followed.Huggins House, in the weeks, the months, that jogged along at a most comfortable pace, proved to be, for the old gentleman, all that the rose vines and the turtle dove sign had175 |
