Читать книгу The Disagreeable Woman - Alger Horatio Jr., Thomas Chandler Haliburton - Страница 7

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.