There is no dulness in the quietest home like the dulness that falls at intervals on a boarding-house. It may be that at home one does not expect much, while living with a number of strangers one feels restless, as if something really ought to happen.

There are blanks and periods of depression, extending sometimes to months at a time, when life seems a waste. During these, efforts to get up any amusement are useless. No one will help, and so much cold water is thrown on every suggestion, that in despair the promoter abandons the project.

Such an interval was now being put through at No. 37. Conversation, as we have indicated, languished, being replaced by an occasional interchange of platitudes, failing any private or public sensation. An audacious flirtation on the part of one of the younger women, or a thrilling murder trial, 23would have interested everybody, especially the flirtation, on the progress of which the boarders would have taken turns to watch and comment on.

23

Relieved of all household duties, the “ladies,” as Mrs. Wilcox never failed to call them, passed the monotonous days in shopping, novel-reading, and repose. They made up temporary friendships between themselves and fell out with regularity. As usual, they were split into two factions, those who abused the proprietress and those who did not.

The drawing-room in which they nightly assembled was a spacious apartment. A Brussels carpet of pronounced pattern, red Utrecht velvet chairs—solid, as befitted furniture destined to much wear and tear—and gilt-framed mirrors, gave the apartment an early Victorian aspect. The light and airy found no place in this salon, for in boarding-houses everything breakable is broken, and nobody owns to the mischief.

Workbaskets, newspapers, and novels were brought out this evening as usual, and nearly all the party became absorbed in one or other of these excitements. They had exhausted each other, though one or two kept up a 24dribble of civil enquiries for the sake of saying something.

24

“What pretty work. How do you do it?”

“Oh! it is a new stitch I have just learned.”

“Were you out this afternoon?”

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