Nannie's gone up to Mrs. Kinalden's to get some messages for the letter to Mr. Bond. What has happened to the old lady? She has grown so very gracious, and places a chair for Nannie, and offers her a warm doughnut which she has just fried, and then she sits down with the cat on her lap, while she talks to the girl about the old gentleman. There's a good-natured smile upon her face, and somehow Nannie forgets how old and disagreeable she thought her when she used to come to see the sick man; and puss feels quite at home on the kind lap that no longer gives her a spiteful toss upon the hard floor.

There's something come over Mrs. Kinalden, surely! Perhaps the letters that occasionally reach her from the amiable bachelor have something contagious in them, and may be they awaken in her mind a faint hope that the address, "My dear Mrs. Kinalden," may mean a little more than appears upon the surface. He says "how much he misses the comfort of his home!" too, and "what delight it will give him to be once more settled in his quiet room;" and he tells her to "take good care of puss for his sake;" and isn't that almost equal to a declaration? The old lady often draws a crumpled paper from her pocket, and carefully adjusting her spectacles upon her nose, goes over the manuscript with the forefinger of her right hand, stopping at "For my sake," and pondering the words very seriously. She doesn't know how it would do to change her situation at her time of life, although she does not feel a bit older than when she was married to Mr. Kinalden! She wonders if he, poor dear man! would rise from his grave if she should ever suffer herself to be called Mrs. Bond! He used to say that he should not lie peacefully beneath the sod if she were to drop his name for another. She was always afraid of "sperits," and if he should appear to her! and she crumples the paper up again, and thrusts it hastily into its secret receptacle, and chides herself for forgetting for one moment her buried lord, for the night is coming on, and she is not particularly courageous in the dreamy hours of darkness, and she is not sure but Mr. Kinalden's ghost will punish her for thought as well as deed.

Nannie has gone a long time ago. She only staid a moment to get news for the letter, and the old lady was quite alone when she suffered herself to embrace so important a subject as good Mr. Bond. The boarders drop in one by one and Mrs. Kinalden's thoughts are concentrated in her cups and saucers, and the hot tea that goes steaming round the table, and the query whether "Mr. Viets is the gentleman who takes sugar?" and "if it is Mr. Ballack that doesn't take milk?" and "which of the gentlemen it is that likes both sugar and milk?" and "which that takes neither?" And so all her aspirations after the Cuban bachelor are hushed for the present, amid the sober realities of her responsible station. It is not very remarkable that she sometimes dreams that it would be very agreeable to make a different arrangement! To be sure her boarders are as good as other boarders; but there's this person does not like beefsteak, and is very fond of mutton chops, and that one can not endure mutton chops, but delights in beefsteak; and fresh pork is too gross for such a one's appetite, and veal cutlets are disagreeable to Mr. So and So. Graham bread is the peculiar diet of one, and another never touches any thing but dry toast; and some like pastry, and some puddings; and what with them all and their likes and dislikes, the poor woman is almost distracted with the worriment and care.

No wonder then that she often sighs to be free from such a bondage! Her absent lodger never gave her any trouble; she can see it now that he is away, and she only wishes that his fat merry face would soon show itself again at her table. It would make her quite contented with her station at the big waiter.

It is a pity your mind's on that train, Mrs. Kinalden. Mr. Bond's heart is not made of wax, and is a terribly unimpressible object, so far as the ladies are concerned. There is only one other heart to whose pulsations it has ever responded, and that one has ceased to beat. Yours may throb and throb beneath the waist of your dove-colored merino, but his will never answer it, be sure of that!