“Such a son as you have is a fortune, Madam; and as for the daughter, she is a gem, a genuine diamond, Madam.”

“Ha! ha! do you really think so, Sir?” said the mother, evidently gratified with the superlativeness of the compliment.  “Well, they do say children are jewels.—­but I’ve found, Sir, they are pretty troublesome and pretty costly jewels.  Mine, as you say, are very good children,—­though Frank is pretty wilful, and Laury is always gettin’ her head above the clouds.  Oh, dear! they want a great deal done for ’em,—­and the more you do, the more you may do.  Frank is bewitched to sell out and go to Kansas or Californy, or, if he stays here, he must go to college or be a merchant.  And Laury, even she isn’t contented; she wants to be some sort of artist, make statters or picters,—­or be a milliner, at least.  So you see I haven’t a minute’s peace of my life with ’em.”

Of course Chip saw it, and the more’s the pity.

“All the better, Madam,” said he.  “Young America must go ahead.  There’s nothing to be had without venturing.  If I can ever be of service to either of your children in forwarding their laudable ambition, I am sure it will give me the greatest pleasure.”

“You are very kind, Sir, but I only wish you could persuade ’em to let well alone, and at least not try the world till they know more of it.”

“Not touch the water till they have learned to swim, eh?  That’s not quite so easy, Madam.  Never fear; I’ll be bound, a boy that can say No like yours is perfectly safe anywhere; and as to Laura, why, Madam, I never heard of an angel getting into difficulty in the wickedest of worlds.”

“Our old minister, Parson Usher that was, used to say some of the Bible angels fell,—­and I am sure, Sir, the human angels have a worse chance.  They are about the only ones that run any risk at all.”

“True, true enough, Ma’am, in one point of view.  Too much care cannot be taken to select the society in which young people are to move.  In the right society, such a girl as Laura would win homage on every side, and make herself happy by making everybody else so.”

“I believe you are right there, Sir,” said Mrs. Birch, quite charmed with such beautiful appreciation of what she felt to be Laura’s excellence; “and I don’t wonder sometimes that she should be discontented with the society she has here, poor girl!”

“When you see the sun begin to shine in the morning, you may be sure enough it will keep rising all the forenoon,” said Chip, with the air of a great moral philosopher, conscious of having made a decided impression.  And suddenly recollecting how valuable was his time in town, and that the train would be due in five minutes, he swallowed the last of his coffee, paid his bill, told the landlady how happy he was to have made her acquaintance and that of her interesting family, promised he would never stop in Waltham without calling, and strode away.