every day. She never would,--nothin' but a breastpin with her
mother's hair in it, and sometimes one little black cross. That made
me think she was a Roman Catholic, especially when she got a picter
of the Virgin Mary and hung it up in her room; so I asked her, and
she shook her head and said these very words,--that she never saw a
church-door so narrow she couldn't go in through it, nor so wide
that all the Creator's goodness and glory could enter it; and then
she dropped her eyes and went to work on a flannel petticoat she was
makin',--which I knowed, but she didn't tell me, was for a poor old
woman.

I've said enough about them two boarders, but I believe it's all true.
Their places is vacant, and I should be very glad to fill 'em with
two gentlemen, or with a gentleman and his wife, or any respectable
people, be they merried or single.

I've heerd some talk about a friend of that gentleman's comin' to
take his place.

That's the gentleman that he calls "the Professor," and I'm sure I
hope there is sech a man; only all I can say is, I never see him,
and none of my boarders ever see him, and that smart young man that
I was speakin' of says he don't believe there's no sech person as him,
nor that other one that he called "the Poet." I don't much care
whether folks professes or makes poems, if they makes themselves
agreeable and pays their board regular. I'm a poor woman, that tries
to get an honest livin', and works hard enough for it; lost my
husband, and buried five children.... ....

Excuse me, dear Madam, I said,--looking at my watch,--but you spoke
of certain papers which your boarder left, and which you were ready
to dispose of for the pages of the "Oceanic Miscellany."

The landlady's face splintered again into the wreck of the broken
dimples of better days.--She should be much obleeged, if I would
look at them, she said,--and went up stairs and got a small desk
containing loose papers. I looked them hastily over, and selected
one of the shortest pieces, handed the landlady a check which
astonished her, and send the following poem as an appendix to my
report. If I should find others adapted to the pages of the spirited
periodical which has done so much to develop and satisfy the
intellectual appetite of the American public, and to extend the name
of its enterprising publishers throughout the reading world, I shall
present them in future numbers of the "Oceanic Miscellany."

THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA.

A