to an end. With Miss Frost its spirit passed away: it was no more.
Dark, empty-feeling, it seemed all the time like a house just before
a sale.
CHAPTER V
THE BEAU
Throttle-Ha'penny worked fitfully through the winter, and in the
spring broke down. By this time James Houghton had a pathetic,
childish look which touched the hearts of Alvina and Miss Pinnegar.
They began to treat him with a certain feminine indulgence, as he
fluttered round, agitated and bewildered. He was like a bird that
has flown into a room and is exhausted, enfeebled by its attempts to
fly through the false freedom of the window-glass. Sometimes he
would sit moping in a corner, with his head under his wing. But Miss
Pinnegar chased him forth, like the stealthy cat she was, chased him
up to the work-room to consider some detail of work, chased him into
the shop to turn over the old débris of the stock. At one time he
showed the alarming symptom of brooding over his wife's death. Miss
Pinnegar was thoroughly scared. But she was not inventive. It was
left to Alvina to suggest: "Why doesn't father let the shop, and
some of the house?"
Let the shop! Let the last inch of frontage on the street! James
thought of it. Let the shop! Permit the name of Houghton to
disappear from the list of tradesmen? Withdraw? Disappear? Become a
nameless nobody, occupying obscure premises?
He thought about it. And thinking about it, became so indignant at the
thought that he pulled his scattered energies together within his frail
frame. And then he came out with the most original of all his schemes.
Manchester House was to be fitted up as a boarding-house for the better
classes, and was to make a fortune catering for the needs of these
gentry, who had now nowhere to go. Yes, Manchester House should be
fitted up as a sort of quiet family hotel for the better classes. The
shop should be turned into an elegant hall-entrance, carpeted, with a
hall-porter and a wide plate-glass door, round-arched, in the round
arch of which the words: "Manchester House" should appear large and
distinguished, making an arch also, whilst underneath, more refined and
smaller, should show the words: "Private Hotel." James was to be
proprietor and secretary, keeping the books and attending to
correspondence: Miss Pinnegar was to be manageress, superintending the
servants and directing the house, whilst Alvina was to occupy the
equivocal position of "hostess." She was to shake hands with the
guests: she was to play the piano, and she was to nurse the sick. For
in the prospectus James would include: "Trained nurse always on the
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