took it a bit rusty and would not come. Then the pair went on
a wedding journey to Niagara and Trenton Falls; and old Jamie, the day
after the ceremony, came down looking happier than he had seemed for
years. There was a light in his lonely old face; it comes rarely to us
on earth, but, by one who sees it, it is not forgotten. Old Mr.
Bowdoin saw it; and, remembering that interview scarce two years gone
by, his nose tingled. It is rare that natures with such happy lives as
his are so "dowered with the love of love." But when old Jamie looked
at him, he but asked some business question; and Jamie marveled that
the old gentleman blew his nose so hard and damned the weather so
vigorously.

When the St. Clairs came back, Jamie moved to an upper back room, and
gave them the rest of the new house. Mercedes was devotedly in love
with her husband. She would have liked to meet people, if but to show
him to them. But she knew no one worthy save the Bowdoins, and they
did not get on with him. His own social acquaintance, of which he had
boasted somewhat, appeared to be in other cities. And _ennui_ (which
causes more harm in the world than many a more evil passion) began
imperceptibly to take possession of him.

However, they continued to live on together. St. Clair was fairly
regular at his work; and all went well for more than a year.

IV.

No year, probably, of James McMurtagh's life had he been so happy. It
delighted him to let St. Clair away early from the bank; and to sit
alone over the ledgers, imagining St. Clair's hurrying home, and the
greeting kiss, and the walk they got along the shells of the beach
before supper, with the setting sun slanting to them over the wide bay
from the Brookline hills. When they took the meal alone, it delighted
Jamie to sit at Mercy's right and have her David help him; or, when
they had "company," it pleased the old man almost as much to stay away
and think proudly of them. Such times he would sit alone on the Common
and smoke his pipe, and come home late and let himself in with his
latch-key, and steal up quickly to his own bedroom at the top of the
house.

Now that he was so happy, and had left his old friends the Bowdoins,
a wave of unconscious affection for them spread over his soul. Under
pretext of keeping their accounts straight--which now hardly needed
balancing even once a month--old Jamie would edge down to the
counting-room upon the wharf, after hours, or even for a f