me that the old gentleman
was sleeping peacefully.

Slumber was coy with me that night. I lay listening to the soughing of
the wind, and thinking of Mr. Jaffrey's illusion. It had amused me at
first with its grotesqueness; but now the poor little phantom was dead,
I was conscious that there had been something pathetic in it all along.
Shortly after midnight the wind sunk down, coming and going fainter and
fainter, floating around the eaves of the tavern with an undulating,
murmurous sound, as if it were turning itself into soft wings to bear
away the spirit of a little child.

Perhaps nothing that happened during my stay at Bayley's Four-Corners
took me so completely by surprise as Mr. Jaffrey's radiant countenance
the next morning. The morning itself was not fresher or sunnier. His
round face literally shone with geniality and happiness. His eyes
twinkled like diamonds, and the magnetic light of his hair was turned
on full. He came into my room while I was packing my valise. He chirped,
and prattled, and carolled, and was sorry I was going away--but never a
word about Andy. However, the boy had probably been dead several years
then!

The open wagon that was to carry me to the station stood at the door;
Mr. Sewell was placing my case of instruments under the seat, and Mr.
Jaffrey had gone up to his room to get me a certain newspaper containing
an account of a remarkable shipwreck on the Auckland Islands. I took the
opportunity to thank Mr. Sewell for his courtesies to me, and to express
my regret at leaving him and Mr. Jaffrey.

"I have become very much attached to Mr. Jaffrey," I said; "he is a most
interesting person; but that hypothetical boy of his, that son of Miss
Mehetabel's"--

"Yes, I know!" interrupted Mr. Sewell, testily. "Fell off a step-ladder
and broke his dratted neck. Eleven year old, was n't he? Always does,
jest at that point. Next week Silas will begin the whole thing over
again, if he can get anybody to listen to him."

"I see. Our amiable friend is a little queer on that subject."

Mr. Sewell glanced cautiously over his shoulder, and, tapping himself
significantly on the forehead, said in a low voice,

"Room To Let--Unfurnished!"

End of Project Gutenberg's Miss Mehetabel's Son, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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