After watching daily for a time, I think I can see clearly into the relation which is growing up between the little gentleman and the young lady.  She shows a tenderness to him that I can’t help being interested in.  If he was her crippled child, instead of being more than old enough to be her father, she could not treat him more kindly.  The landlady’s daughter said, the other day, she believed that girl was settin’ her cap for Little Boston.

Some of them young folks is very artful,—­said her mother,—­and there is them that would merry Lazarus, if he’d only picked up crumbs enough.  I don’t think, though, this is one of that sort; she’s kinder child-like,—­said the landlady,—­and maybe never had any dolls to play with; for they say her folks was poor before Ma’am undertook to see to her teachin’ and board her and clothe her.

I could not help overhearing this conversation.  “Board her and clothe her!”—­speaking of such a young creature!  Oh, dear!—­Yes,—­she must be fed,—­just like Bridget, maid-of-all-work at this establishment.  Somebody must pay for it.  Somebody has a right to watch her and see how much it takes to “keep” her, and growl at her, if she has too good an appetite.  Somebody has a right to keep an eye on her and take care that she does not dress too prettily.  No mother to see her own youth over again in those fresh features and rising reliefs of half-sculptured womanhood, and, seeing its loveliness, forget her lessons of neutral-tinted propriety, and open the cases that hold her own ornaments to find her a necklace or a bracelet or a pair of earrings,—­those golden lamps that light up the deep, shadowy dimples on the cheeks of young beauties,—­swinging in a semi-barbaric splendor that carries the wild fancy to Abyssinian queens and musky Odalisques!  I don’t believe any woman has utterly given up the great firm of Mundus & Co., so long as she wears earrings.

I think Iris loves to hear the little gentleman talk.  She smiles sometimes at his vehement statements, but never laughs at him.  When he speaks to her, she keeps her eye always steadily upon him.  This may be only natural good-breeding, so to speak, but it is worth noticing.  I have often observed that vulgar persons, and public audiences of inferior collective intelligence, have this in common:  the least thing draws off their minds, when you are speaking to them.  I love this young creature’s rapt attention to her diminutive neighbor while he is speaking.

He is evidently pleased with it.  For a day or two after she came, he was silent and seemed nervous and excited.  Now he is fond of getting the talk into his own hands, and is obviously conscious that he has at least one interested listener.  Once or twice I have seen marks of special attention to personal adornment,—­a ruffled shirt-bosom, one day, and a diamond pin in it,—­not so very large as the Koh-i-noor’s, but more lustrous.  I mentioned the death’s-head ring