The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1878-07-18
d" As COMPANION TO A LADY,"

"I'm very sorry, Miss, but I'm only
q poor woman myself, and if you can't
pay the rent of this room, don't see as
you can afford the rent of the one up
stairs
Here the landlady rubbed her nose
yiciously upon her apron, and stared
straight out of the very dirty window.
AS this was evidently a challenge for
me to reply, l said, as firmly as could,
a few words which brought out the rea-
son for the woman's visit that morning
cam to understand, then, that you
wish me TO leave?"
4" If you please, Miss, at the end of the
week, for there's the gent on the first
floor would like to have this bedroom"
" Very well, Mrs. RuddOck," | said;
al will find a room elsewhere"
Thanky, Miss" she said, sharply;
and giving her nose another vicious rub,
she left me to my thoughts-and my
tears.
For was weak, faint and heartsick,
and the coins in my purse had dwindled
down, so that if | did not succeed in OBJ
tanning an engagement in very few
DAYS | had no resource but to creep back
to the country and avow my failure.
just three months since and we were
all SO happy in the little country vicar
age; and then, in visiting one of his
people, my poor father caught dam
gerous fever, while in tending him my
dear mother was stricken with the same
complaint, and ere three weeks had
passed Minna and sat in the little study
a, -, g., ho or 10
had been brief, and those we loved lay
together in the green church-yard, and
we were only intruders now in the little
vicarage that had been our home.
We were nearly pennilesS, too, but
brother-clergyman of my fathers, quite
as poor, came forward and offered us
temporary home till. as he said, some
opening should occur for us.
| gladly accepted it for Minna; but
for myself, ! was determined to try
great London, and, unaided, battle for
myself. In two years John Murray was
to come back from Australia to fetch me
for his wife, and till then would be in
dependent. So the day came at last
when, with many tears, we two girls
had to separate, and with aching heart
left the old Lincolnshire home, and
reached the great dreary void of Lon
don early one afternoon.
/ was not long in finding n place
where l could stay, in the shape of 3
second-hoo front room in one of those
heart-aching streets near the Found
ling-streets that echo from morning to
night with mournful cries uttered by
vendors whose goods it is impossible TO
surmise, and with the dismal echoing
tones of the various organs. So painful
were these last 10 me, that often of an
evening, when / have returned from a
weary, disheartening search for an en-
gagement, and sat alone and hungry,
fearing to spend my money in any thing
beyond the tea and bread and butter up
on which | existed, these doleful strains
cheering, maybe, TO some-have had
such an effect upon me that | have sat
and sobbed till, utterly worn out, have
fallen asleep, 10 wake, perhaps, hours
alter, TO fad it very late, and crawl
shivering off TO bed.
As ths weeks passed on and my adj
vertise nents and fees paidtO the various
registry Offices had been without effect,
l used To crawl back TO my room, grow
ing more and more disheartened. /
was always plain, sallOw-loOkiDg girl,
and now in my fast-wearing black be-