Nannie wrote such a long letter to Mr. Bond, in her childish, unformed way. She told him every little thing concerning their own household, and the Flins', and Pat's misfortunes, and their ejectment from, and reinstalment in, their attic home; and she dwelt a great while upon Mrs. Flin's metamorphosis, and upon her own new abode with the Minturns. And the worthy bachelor read it all with as much delight as if it had been his pet-newspaper. Wasn't it just what interested him, and he so far away from the spot where all his joys centered alone, and among a strange people! What if it was a child's composition—wasn't that child Nannie Bates! and hadn't he determined to make something of her in the world! and couldn't he see an uncommon degree of intelligence even in that unfinished epistle! How he frowned when he learned of Mrs. Flin's cruel treatment toward the sick boy and the straitened family; and how he congratulated himself upon being rid of the woman's importunities in behalf of the precocious Sammy; and how he laughed at the vision of Jerold Flin treading cat-like over the soft carpets, and sending his jets of liquid His landlady was growing amiable! that was the best of all; but he guessed the secret of it, and feared it would not prove lasting. "It wasn't for nothing, Peter Bond," soliloquized he, "that she was so willing to be burdened with the care of thy favorite puss! It wasn't for nothing that so many goodies were stuffed into thy already crowded valise! It wasn't for nothing that her communications have been so frequent, and contained such tender inquiries after thy health, and such pathetic injunctions to be careful of thyself!" You must be a simpleton, man, to imagine that a benevolent disposition prompted so many manifestations all of a sudden, when the past was so different. "But why not?" thought he, as his charitable heart sought for a better motive in the woman than selfishness. "Isn't there such a thing as an immediate turning from the evil to the good? It does not take long to change the current of one's actions, if one is determined and energetic. But we shall see, we shall see;" and the good man leaned back in his chair, with his spectacles between his thumb and forefinger, and suffered himself to be carried away into a brighter past. He was not long in forgetting Mrs. Kinalden, and Mrs. Flin, and even his young protÉgÉe, and, looking off upon the surging ocean, he dreamed of a distant land where his spirit loved to linger with the soul that was hidden from other eyes. His reveries were very soothing and pleasant, and the people would wonder, as Oh! how much they lost of true good, while the loving spirit, unperturbed by the trifles that so deeply affected them, sought its fellow, and with it held a sweet and refining communion. It was a great wonderment to Mr. Bond what happiness there could be in crowding together in a saloon, and smoking, and drinking, and card-playing, and low and boisterous conversation. He forgot that it would be quite impossible for some minds to think, and that such need a continual excitement to make the hours endurable. Tell them to walk down upon the wondrous beach, and interest themselves in the beauties of a sublime nature, or to sit gazing upward with delight at a heavenly creation, or to look within themselves and strive after a higher and more perfect development, and how many would not turn sneeringly away, and empty the brimming glass, or light a fresh cigar, or begin a new game at faro, with the evident feeling that their own ideas of pleasure were far before your unfashionable and strange notions. |