CHAPTER X.

Mrs. Flin seemed to her new lodgers to be a quiet kind of body, keeping
her own house without minding much about her neighbors. The truth of it
was she held herself a good deal above them, for she was well to do in
the world. Besides she visited in the next street at the large white
house with green blinds, where they kept a hired girl, and to be sure
she didn't care for the people that took one or two rooms of her, and
lived in a small way, save for the money they paid her; she was pretty
sure to make them all a call once a quarter at least, and woe betide
them if the rent-money was not forthcoming! She didn't call herself a
hard-hearted woman; but she must look out for her own rights since Mr.
Flin was off at sea the greater part of the time, and there was nobody
to take the responsibility from her.

One thing troubled her considerably, and that was that such a
gentlemanly-looking man as Mr. Bond should lavish all his favors and
visits upon her poor lodger's children. She thought he might as well
stop sometimes on the first floor and notice her little Sammy; but he
never did--although she often met him in the entry, and invited him to
walk in and rest before going up the long flights of stairs--but went
panting upward with his gold-headed cane in his hand, and the ruffles to
his shirt rising and falling at every ascent.

Sammy was a sad little rascal, and would throw apple-skins on the entry
floor, and lay round pebbles on the lowest stair, hoping to trip the old
man up as he came in or went out, and Mr. Bond caught him at it, so that
he was always careful afterward to keep an eye to his feet. But the boy
stood in his own light, for there were no favors for him after that. Mr.
Bond never patronized wicked children.

His mother would manage to stand in the door, whenever she saw the
gentleman coming, with Sammy by her side, and she would ask him if he
wasn't fond of children, and tell him what a good boy Sammy was at
school, and how well he got on with his lessons; and then Sammy must
speak his last piece to Mr. Bond. But it would not do; he stood it all
very patiently, and when she had the grace to leave space enough for him
to pass her, he would make his bow and walk gravely on, glad to reach
the shelter of the pleasant attic. Mrs. Flin laid it up against him,
though, and threw out many an innuendo concerning his frequent visits to
the poor children, when gossiping with her friend of the whi