"Do we now make a promenade in the garden, to see your work?

"Yet," he added, pausing and again looking around him, "but yet once
more I observe. This room,"--it was strange, he did not seem to like the
parlour any better than he had liked the kitchen--"this room, to live
in! a young person, figure it, Colorado! gentle, with desires, with
dreams of beauty, and this only to behold! For companion an ancient
onion,--I say things that are improper, my son! I demand pardon! But for
a young person, a maiden to live here, would be sad indeed, do you think
it?"

John pondered, in wonder and some trouble of mind. There was something
that he had to say, something very hard; but it would not be polite just
now, and he must answer a question when he was asked. "I--I thought it
was a fine room!" he said at length, timidly. "It isn't as bright,
somehow, as where I used to live with my mother, and--it seems to stay
shut up, even when it isn't; but--I guess it's a fine room, sir; and
then, if a person didn't like it, there's all out-doors, you know, and
that's never shut up."

"True!" cried the Skipper, with a merry laugh; "out of doors is never
shut up, praise be to Heaven!" He pulled off his cap, and looked up at
the shining sky. They were standing on the door-step now, and John
noticed that his companion seemed much less grave than usual. He
laughed, he patted the boy on the shoulder, he hummed snatches of
strange, sweet melodies. Once or twice he broke out into speech, but it
was foreign speech, and John knew nothing save that it was something
cheerful. They walked about the garden, and the Skipper surveyed John's
work, and pronounced it prodigious. He questioned the child closely,
too, as to how he lived, and what he did, and why he stayed with Mr.
Scraper. But the child could tell him little. He supposed it was all
right; his mother was dead, and there was nobody else, and Mr. Scraper
said he was his father's uncle, and that the latter had appointed him
guardian over John in case of the mother's death. That was all, he
guessed.

"All, my faith!" cried the Skipper, gayly. "Enough, too, Colorado! quite
enough, in the opinion of me. But I go, my son! Till a little while; you
will come to-day to the 'Nautilus,' yes?"

But little John stood still in the path, and looked up in his friend's
face. The time had come when he must do the hard thing, and it was
harder even than he had thought it would be. His throat was very dry,
an