te house,
and so it reached his landlady, Mrs. Kinalden, who knew Mr. and Mrs.
Airly very well.

"A strange how d'ye do it is," said she to Mr. Bond, one evening on his
return from Nannie's, "that I must keep my doors open till half past
nine o'clock, for you to be out on your untimely visits to a poor
widder! It isn't any sich doings Susan Kinalden'll countenance, you'd
better believe!"

Mr. Bond did not think her worth one moment's excitability, so he calmly
told her she could find another occupant for his room if she was
dissatisfied with his conduct, and he would seek a home elsewhere.

It was wonderful how changed she was when he went down to breakfast the
next morning. There were hot eggs beside his plate, and a dish of warm
toast, and the landlady was full of her compliments. "She didn't see how
Mr. Bond managed to look so fresh and young! She was on the sunny side
of fifty, and anybody would take him to be her brother!" and when he
asked her what time he should remove his furniture, she wondered he had
lived so long in the house with her and never yet found out her jesting
propensities. She's sure she couldn't desire a nicer or more circumspect
boarder than Mr. Bond! And so the matter passed over. She knew her own
interest too well to venture on forbidden ground again. And he had got
attached to the room, and did not care to leave it. The portrait had
occupied that same space for more than ten years, and there was a sacred
sort of feeling about the place that he could not find elsewhere. Puss
liked her quarters too, and it was not worth while to seek a change so
long as she didn't complain. Mr. Bond thought himself very foolish to
have proposed such a thing, and he went from his breakfast and settled
himself in his chair by his center-table, with a self-gratulation that
he hadn't got to move after all. As for Mrs. Kinalden, she could
scarcely forgive herself for incurring the risk of losing one of her
best and most permanent boarders, and her night had been spent in bitter
self-reproaches and regrets. The morning, however, compensated for the
night of grief, when she felt that Mr. Bond--good soul!--overlooked it
all, and was willing to stay. "It stands you in hand to mind your
tongue, though, Susan Kinalden," soliloquized she, as she wiped the last
dish and stood it up end-wise in her pantry. "It isn't the first time
you've come nigh biting your own head off!"

CHAPTER XI.

"Come in, Pat; mother'll