servants, and help yourself of the edibles 'way across the table, though
Sally does her best to get your plate so as to wait upon you? Watch your
wife, Jerold Flin. Don't you see how easy this gentility sits upon her;
and were you not born and bred in as good a station as she? You scorn it
all, do you! Notwithstanding, I'll warrant me you'll not know Jerry
Doolan this day twelve months! Mark my words!

CHAPTER XXIV.

Nannie's gone up to Mrs. Kinalden's to get some messages for the letter
to Mr. Bond. What has happened to the old lady? She has grown so very
gracious, and places a chair for Nannie, and offers her a warm doughnut
which she has just fried, and then she sits down with the cat on her
lap, while she talks to the girl about the old gentleman. There's a
good-natured smile upon her face, and somehow Nannie forgets how old and
disagreeable she thought her when she used to come to see the sick man;
and puss feels quite at home on the kind lap that no longer gives her a
spiteful toss upon the hard floor.

There's something come over Mrs. Kinalden, surely! Perhaps the letters
that occasionally reach her from the amiable bachelor have something
contagious in them, and may be they awaken in her mind a faint hope that
the address, "My dear Mrs. Kinalden," may mean a little more than
appears upon the surface. He says "how much he misses the comfort of his
home!" too, and "what delight it will give him to be once more settled
in his quiet room;" and he tells her to "take good care of puss for his
sake;" and isn't that almost equal to a declaration? The old lady often
draws a crumpled paper from her pocket, and carefully adjusting her
spectacles upon her nose, goes over the manuscript with the forefinger
of her right hand, stopping at "For my sake," and pondering the words
very seriously. She doesn't know how it would do to change her situation
at her time of life, although she does not feel a bit older than when
she was married to Mr. Kinalden! She wonders if he, poor dear man! would
rise from his grave if she should ever suffer herself to be called Mrs.
Bond! He used to say that he should not lie peacefully beneath the sod
if she were to drop his name for another. She was always afraid of
"sperits," and if he should appear to her! and she crumples the paper up
again, and thrusts it hastily into its secret receptacle, and chides
herself for forgetting for one moment her buried lord, for the night is
coming on,