W. Pett Ridge

“ Society of an agreeable kind was denied to her, for an attractive young woman in those days could not entertain at Gordon Square without exciting remark, and alone she could not with propriety visit even the Lyceum theatre to see Fechter. The habit of proposing for her hand was discontinued by the moneyed youth of Bloomsbury, then much occupied by affairs in the City, and when the Cabinet minister ran away with an old lady, great fear came upon Miss Rawley that with all her special gifts she might remain unmarried. ”

“ Miss Rawley lost no time in facing the situation caused by the loss of her fortune. She invested her small remaining capital in a boarding-house in Gower Street, near to Torrington Place, and endeavoured to distract her mind from thoughts of her middle-aged lover by setting about with great show of businesslike manners to organise an establishment where boarders could be accepted at thirty shillings per week. ”

“ Her old maid Wilson, now near to fifty years, had come back (the ex-Sheriff's daughter having grown so stout that Wilson could no longer stay with her) , and Wilson was a woman of resource. It was Wilson who, on one desolate July evening, when all the other boarding-houses in Bloomsbury were clattering and steaming and crackling with the dinner-hour offered a suggestion to which poor young Miss Rawley lent her pretty ears.
"Miss," said Wilson, in the front room of the first floor, "I've been thinking."
"There is little else to do," declared Miss Rawley dolefully. ”

“ Instead of which——"
"She pirouetted before the glass." "I think," she said, her young lips quivering, "that it—it is most unkind of you to complain of my youthfulness. I thought you would have been pleased." "So I should, so I should, my dear, if I had kept young also. But"—here he glanced in the mirror—"I've not."
"You can scarcely blame me for that."
"I blame no one. I only want to avoid making myself look damnably ridiculous."
"Captain Finlayson! Such language——"
"My dear, pray excuse me. I have undergone so much that it is a wonder I remember any language at all." ”

“ If I was mistress and you was the servant we should 'ave the 'ouse full before you could say 'knife.’"
"Wilson! There's something in what you say."
"Miss," said Wilson, "there's more'n something: there's everything. Let's argue it out."
The result of argument appeared the next day, when Miss Wilson assumed the position of landlady, and a fresh card being placed over the front door, Miss Wilson met applications with the stony demeanour which was expected; the maid appeared to be a neat and tidy girl; boarders came and stayed and sent for all their
"He patted her head in a paternal manner." ”

“ It was unusual—almost unprecedented, in fact; but her lover had just sailed for the Crimea, and there were so many things for the gods to look after, that they decided, in order to save bother and argument, that she should, as she desired, retain her youth for ever. Miss Rawley, feeling gratified by this, longed greatly to tell her girl companions in Gordon Square of the privilege that had been accorded to her, but this was distinctly prohibited ”

“ I've had a good deal to put up with during the last thirteen years, and perhaps I'm not quite so alert as I used to be. But I expected to find some one here of what I may term a comfortable age; some one who would make an appropriate partner for a man of my time of life. ”