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Updated: June 26, 2025
"I shan't feel comfortable till I go and see her," said Miss Husted, now thoroughly alarmed; and taking a lamp from a side table, the good lady went upstairs to look at her niece. "That six of spades surely came out for something," muttered Mrs. Mangenborn to herself. "Six is tragedy!
She pondered over her discovery until it became too big for her to bear alone, so she confided it first to Skippy, the little black and tan terrier that the professor had given her as a Christmas gift, and then not getting much response from that quarter she told her secret to Mrs. Mangenborn.
His secret was sacred to all his friends, all, save one, and this solitary exception led to a slight change in the Houston Street establishment. It came about as follows: "When a man comes home with orchids pinned to his coat," confided Mrs. Mangenborn to her friend Miss Husted, "it looks as if it was only a question of time when he would move uptown into more elegant apartments.
A week passed, and Miss Husted could not understand why Von Barwig spoke in such a low tone when he replied to her cheery good-evening. Mrs. Mangenborn put it down to hard times. Jenny knew something was wrong, for he said very little to her as she swept out his room. She knew something had happened, but experience had taught her that sympathy doesn't ask questions.
Mangenborn was proceeding to describe the masculine element in the marriage proposition, and Miss Husted was trying to think who it could be, when the bell rang for the third time just as Thurza's head made its appearance above the kitchen stairs. Miss Husted decided to forget her dignity and go to the door herself.
Mangenborn, aided and abetted by the cards, had predicted a most advantageous marriage for her niece; indeed the cards had pointed to either a title or a million, or both, and Miss Husted dreaded lest any premature, ill-considered love match should interfere with this happy prediction. She declared vehemently that Jenny was too young "even to look at a man."
At this precise moment the innocent object of their strife let himself in at the front door. "Ah, my dear Professor Von Barwig, I was just thinking of you," said Miss Husted, as she followed him into his rooms. "I've got rid of her at last; Mrs. Mangenborn is going." Von Barwig smiled. "Is she?" he said simply, "I am glad for your sake. Now you will be mistress of your own establishment."
Mangenborn had disposed of a second cup of tea, that lady was fairly ensconced in a seven-dollar front room on the first floor for a price that did not exceed three dollars. However, if half her predictions came true, it would have been a fine bargain for Miss Husted or any other landlady to have her as a guest. As Jenny confided to Thurza in the kitchen a few hours later: "You'll see.
It was also the one occasion on which she need not have done so, for she invariably found Miss Rusted or one of the guests ahead of her. "Registered letter for Herr Von Barwig." "I'll take it to him," said Miss Husted sweetly. "He's got to come and sign it himself," said the letter-carrier, shaking his head. "Where's it from?" asked Mrs. Mangenborn, her head appearing over the bannisters.
Jenny could not have explained to herself the whys and wherefores of her tearful outburst, but the child could not forget poor Von Barwig's drawn, haggard face and its weary, hopeless expression. "She's a queer child," commented Mrs. Mangenborn, when Jenny had gone to bed that night.
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