gel came down the happy front steps to
the blessed pavement (Bog's mind supplying these adjectives), Bog would
color up, and sneak off at his best walking pace in the opposite
direction. He felt that, if Pet ever saw him, and should ask him what he
was doing in that neighborhood, he should melt away in perspiring
confusion on the spot.

He called at Mr. Minford's twice a week, to indulge in the hollow form
of asking if he could do anything for him. There he confronted Pet, with
that trembling figure and those averted eyes which an inexperienced
thief may show before the man that he has robbed. But Pet knew not of
the adoring spy.

One afternoon, the boy Bog had made his second detour, and was
approaching the corner of the favored block, when a novel idea struck
him. The very night before, Bog had posted bills of the play, "Faint
Heart Ne'er Won Fair Lady." The gigantic lettering arose in his mind's
eye, like the cross in Constantine's. He had never seen the drama, and
he did not know to what extent Ruy Gomez pushed his audacity, and won
the Countess by it. But the name of the drama held the moral of it; and
the moral, as applied to Bog's case, was: "Stop at this corner, and take
a good view of the, house." To do this, in Bog's opinion, was the height
of boldness. But he thought of the huge parti-colored lettering, and
he did it.

He stopped at the corner, and leaned recklessly against a hydrant. He
looked at the house with a deliberation that amazed himself. At the same
time, as a matter of instinctive caution, he kept his left leg well out
toward the side street, so that he might retreat, should the door
suddenly open and disclose the seraphic vision. He consulted his large
bull's-eye silver watch (a capital timekeeper), and found that it was
half past three o'clock, and he never knew her to be out before four.

This reflection emboldened him. "Faint Heart Ne'er Won Fair Lady," he
thought again, and brought back his left leg to an easy position,
crossing it with his right one against the hydrant. Then he feasted,
with strange composure, upon the house.

Neither Bog nor a much wiser metaphysician could explain it; but the
house, and all around it, seemed to be glorified by the loved one
within. The newly painted door was bright with love; the polished
doorplate and bell handle glistened with love. The name Pillbody looked,
somehow, musical and winning, because the owner of that name was the
teacher and dear compan