from hallowed and exalted thoughts.
The only sound that reached him was the slow and measured breathing of
his grandmother through the thin partition, or the nasal performances of
his father from the loft above. Archie's room was the one his mother had
occupied ever since his remembrance, and miserable and empty as it was,
to him there was an atmosphere of the purest delight. All other spots
were trivial and commonplace compared to the one where the maternal
blessing had been pronounced, and the maternal breath had ceased; and
hardened indeed must the heart have been that could resist his desire
that this one sacred spot might be consecrated alone to him. Here were
the books from which her thin and tremulous fingers had pointed out to
him the rudiments of that knowledge which his spirit so longed to
compass. Here were gathered the few mementoes of her maidenhood--the
trinkets from her early schoolmates, and the love-tokens from her rough
but kind and affectionate husband--all disposed by her own hand, within
the tiny cupboard, that came to be a sealed place to every eye but that
of the child, whose mature mind could take in all their value. These
alone, of all the objects about him, linked him to the dead mother. To
be sure his fond old grandmother doted on the boy in her childish and
simple way, and his father gave him all the love of which his nature was
capable, but there seemed to him no connection between the spiritual
image that so continually hovered about his pathway, and the coarse and
material beings who seemed only to live for the things that give life
and support to the body; and his high communings and yearnings found no
sympathy in either of his well-meaning but obtuse relatives. To look
upon the lad's occasional bursts of enthusiasm with a wondering and
frightened stare, was all that the poor old woman could do to show that
she even observed them, and as for the father, it was quite impossible
to beguile him from his old and commonplace notions. The idea of
listening to reading, or to the explanation of any of the mysteries of
science, formed no part of his mental machinery.

"Book larnin'll do well enough for you, Archie, my boy," he would say;
"but this thing," holding up his trowel in a fond sort of way, "has
found me a good living for many a year, and as for amusement, my pipe
keeps my mind off the trouble, so don't pester yourself trying to turn
me into a new way, child, the old one suits me better!"