TWENTY-SEVENTHE day came that I was hurrying up the shady street toward Madame’s house in Bath. Two months had passed since I had said goodbye to Martin Nelson, certain now that he would some day sail his own ship; equally elated, I knew of nothing to stop me from winning fame and fortune on the stage. A housemaid I had not seen before let me into the small stiff parlor I remembered well.
“’Oom shall I tell Madame is calling?” the maid asked with the priggishness of her kind. I looked too pretty and too happy for good to come out of it, she thought. What wonderful fun, I thought! No doubt convinced that the salon was a den of sin, likely any moment to be flattened with fire and brimstone, yet she would not trade her job to be housekeeper to a clergyman. The more frequently and severely sh
