would only turn out immensely rich and have the
good-nature to die and leave them all his money, it would be as nice as
a three-volume novel.

Little Boston is in a flurry, I suspect, with the excitement of having
such a charming neighbor next him. I judge so mainly by his silence and
by a certain rapt and serious look on his face, as if he were thinking
of something that had happened, or that might happen, or that ought to
happen,--or how beautiful her young life looked, or how hardly Nature
had dealt with him, or something which struck him silent, at any rate. I
made several conversational openings for him, but he did not fire up as
he often does. I even went so far as to indulge in a fling at the State
House, which, as we all know, is in truth a very imposing structure,
covering less ground than St. Peter's, but of similar general effect.
The little man looked up, but did not reply to my taunt. He said to
the young lady, however, that the State House was the Parthenon of our
Acropolis, which seemed to please her, for she smiled, and he reddened a
little,--so I thought. I don't think it right to watch persons who are
the subjects of special infirmity,--but we all do it.

I see that they have crowded the chairs a little at that end of
the table, to make room for another new-comer of the lady sort. A
well-mounted, middle-aged preparation, wearing her hair without
a cap,--pretty wide in the parting, though,--contours vaguely
hinted,--features very quiet,--says little as yet, but seems to keep her
eye on the young lady, as if having some responsibility for her.--

* * * * *

My record is a blank for some days after this. In the mean time I have
contrived to make out the person and the story of our young lady,
who, according to appearances, ought to furnish us a heroine for a
boarding-house romance before a year is out. It is very curious that
she should prove connected with a person many of us have heard of.
Yet, curious as it is, I have been a hundred times struck with the
circumstance that the most remote facts are constantly striking each
other; just as vessels starting from ports thousands of miles apart pass
close to each other in the naked breadth of the ocean, nay, sometimes
even touch, in the dark, with a crack of timbers, a gurgling of water, a
cry of startled sleepers,--a cry mysteriously echoed in warning dreams,
as the wife of some Gloucester fisherman, some coasting skipper,