Bennett Divorce Case Author:George Bennett Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Mrs. Bennett suggested the plan of breaking up housekeeping, and boarding with this same Mrs. Austin, and tried to convince me, by a long train of reasoning, tha... more »t boarding was not only more preferable than housekeeping, but far less troublesome, and much cheaper. So I consented to her wishes at once. My wite the same evening called on Mrs. Austin, and the plan was entered into immediately. We were to have a large front room on the second floor, with a bedroom adjoining, together with another large front room on the third floor. These were rented by us for the year. We were to take our meals at Mrs. Austin's table, at a stated price per week. In a few days we had the rooms- beautifully fitted up and we took up our abode in our new quarters. It was just after this that a sailor came into our house with a hammock filled with silks, saying that he had just arrived from a port in China. He displayed them to us, telling us that they were the richest and most beautiful silks ever imported. "Now," said he, " I smuggled them on board, and shall sell them dreadful cheap." He told us at the same time, that he had lost, within a day or two, his only sister: and there glistened the tears in his eyes for his dying mother, whom he said that he had left that morning in order to sell the silks, that he might appropriate the money for her necessities. Then, turning to my wife, "Take them," said he; " and when you get these riggings on, and they begin to float to the breeze, and the yard-sails are flying, the hull will give a fine fore-and-aft appearance as it flits along life's tempestuous ocean. Now," said he, "these six dresses you may have for ten dollars a piece, only one- third their real value." My wife thought them remarkably cheap, and com- NARRATIVE. 43 mented considerably o...« less