ittie knew how much of humanity there was in the
sorrowing heart that was even now beating with a pure and filial
affection, as the weary steps plodded through the pleasant avenues. She
remembered the deep and grateful feeling that was so constantly
manifesting itself toward her gentle mother as she ministered to him on
his sick bed, and she could appreciate his noble, and generous, and
loving nature, while others saw but the distorted figure that came
between them and an otherwise undisturbed beauty. Take heart, poor
youth! There are kindred loving eyes on earth that beam even for thee!

CHAPTER IX.

Several weeks have passed, and the old woman takes wonderfully to the
new place. She begins to feel really glad for the change that was so
terrible in the anticipation. It is so green and quiet all about the
house--no rude boys shouting in her ear as she steps without the door,
or throwing mud-balls into the open windows; no brazen, neglected girls
to call her low names, or pin dirty rags upon her gown as she walks
about the premises; and then every thing within the walls is so clean
and nice--no threatening cracks in the white ceilings; no dilapidated
walls to totter, or worn planks to shake at every tread; no half-starved
rats, stalking about seeking somewhat to devour; and no odious effluvia
from the waste lot, or the stagnant pond, stopping her breath as she
looked from door or window. Oh! she could not have believed that any
thing that seemed such an evil would prove so great a good. The breeze
came into the clean rooms so laden with the breath of flowers, and the
cheerful notes of birds were all the time in her ears; and in the quiet
evening, she, and the boy, and his father could sit upon the sill of the
door and talk to their heart's content, without one noisy interruption
from the rude crowd, that used to make it so difficult to have one
moment's pleasant intercourse. Archie was more cheerful, too, and took
possession of his little chamber with such a manifest delight that his
grandmother had nothing more to desire. His window looked out upon the
old quarters, and he was thus enabled to contrast the beauty and the
quiet with the sad unrest of his former home; and as he noticed the
rough group so constantly upon the open space, and remembered how often
he had been the butt of their unfeeling jests and cruel sport, he
rejoiced at the high wall that prevented their ingress into his patron's
territory, and fe