d you with hopes perhaps for years, and which left a
blank in your life which nothing has ever filled up.--O. T. quitted
our household carrying with him the passionate regrets of the more
youthful members. He was an ingenious youngster; wrote wonderful
copies, and carved the two initials given above with great skill on
all available surfaces. I thought, by the way, they were all gone;
but the other day I found them on a certain door which I will show
you some time. How it surprised me to find them so near the
ground! I had thought the boy of no trivial dimensions. Well, O.
T., when he went, made a solemn promise to two of us. I was to
have a ship, and the other a marTIN-house (last syllable pronounced
as in the word TIN). Neither ever came; but, oh, how many and many
a time I have stolen to the corner,--the cars pass close by it at
this time,--and looked up that long avenue, thinking that he must
be coming now, almost sure, as I turned to look northward, that
there he would be, trudging toward me, the ship in one hand and the
marTIN-house in the other!

[You must not suppose that all I am going to say, as well as all I
have said, was told to the whole company. The young fellow whom
they call John was in the yard, sitting on a barrel and smoking a
cheroot, the fumes of which came in, not ungrateful, through the
open window. The divinity-student disappeared in the midst of our
talk. The poor relation in black bombazine, who looked and moved
as if all her articulations were elbow-joints, had gone off to her
chamber, after waiting with a look of soul-subduing decorum at the
foot of the stairs until one of the male sort had passed her and
ascended into the upper regions. This is a famous point of
etiquette in our boarding-house; in fact, between ourselves, they
make such an awful fuss about it, that I, for one, had a great deal
rather have them simple enough not to think of such matters at all.
Our landlady's daughter said, the other evening, that she was going
to "retire"; whereupon the young fellow called John took up a lamp
and insisted on lighting her to the foot of the staircase. Nothing
would induce her to pass by him, until the schoolmistress, saying
in good plain English that it was her bed-time, walked straight by
them both, not seeming to trouble herself about either of them.

I have been led away from what I meant the portion included in
these brackets to inform my readers about. I say, then, most o