was unfamiliar to
him, and the three little girls that came out there to play beneath the
trees, were always glad to see the kind face above them, for many a
paper of sugar-plums fell from a capacious pocket that emptied itself
upon the grass, and many a pleasant word floated downward, to make them
happy. Oh! his was a nature to make a Paradise of any spot! so full of
love toward every living thing! What if his landlady was fidgety and
exacting, and called after him every time he entered the house, to wipe
his feet, and when she went to make his bed, would go around shoveling
up the dirt from the carpet muttering all the time about "some people's
slovenliness?" What if his fellow-lodgers always managed to get his seat
at table, and to eat up all the toast and muffins, before he was once
helped, leaving him only the dry bread with which to satisfy a morning's
appetite? What if the neighbors did torment him by continually stoning
his poor cat every time she took a walk in the garden to breathe the
fresh air, so that he was obliged to turn sentinel over the animal's
pedestrian excursions? It wasn't any thing to grumble about, and so the
peaceful man kept a sunny expression and a blessed and good heart, and
his oppressors only heaped upon themselves disagreeable traits without
moving him to a single murmur.

Mr. Bond did not seem to think it incumbent upon any body else to be
kind, or attentive, or good. He had his own way of living and doing, and
it mattered little to him if all the world went in an opposite
direction, he kept straight on in his bright and pleasant path, and it
brought him abundant joy and blessedness.

His cosey room was unusually beautiful and attractive as he returned
from his visit to the lowly basement, and it was with a feeling of
peculiar satisfaction that he seated himself by a window, with his feet
on the sill and his arms crossed upon his breast, while he watched the
vivid lightning as it glided swiftly about amid the blackened heavens.
Oh! how the rain descended, as if to drown the very earth in its
pouring fury. No wonder the good man heaved a sigh for the inmates of
that dreary room, and fancied himself back in the dismal place, with the
cataract of waters rushing down, until baby, and cradle, and stool were
all afloat as upon the great deep. He could not bear it any longer, and
so he took one of the lamps from the mantle, and struck a light, and
lost himself in his newspapers.

CHAPT