“Nothing but a kind o’ white smoke, now,” said Bog.

Uncle Ith, who had just rung the last stroke of a round, relinquished the lever, and looked over the shoulder of his nephew.  “The fire’s out,” said he.  “When you see the steam comin’ up that way, you may know that the water has whipped.”  The old man then seated himself in the backless chair, produced a short black pipe from a crossbeam overhead, and rewarded himself with a few long puffs.

When Uncle Ith had a pipe in his mouth, he became didactic, and he therefore proceeded to renew his donations of valuable advice to his nephew, who was still looking hard out of the southeast window.

Bog cocked his head on one side, to make a show of listening, and said “Yes, sir,” now and then, which was all that his uncle expected of him.  But his whole mind, and his heart, were in the little double-windowed room, where Pet was now practising upon the piano.  Through the uncurtained glass, Bog could see her hands weaving music with the keys, and almost fancy he could hear it.  The inventor bent over his machine, and plied the hammer, the chisel, and the file, on various parts of it.  Now and then he would pause, stand erect, and look proudly toward his child, and keep time to her music with inclinations of his head.  Bog, without knowing it, would do the same thing.

While the boy was gloating over this scene, unconscious of the swift passage of time, the clock on the nearest church struck nine.  Bog sighed, for he knew that that was Pet’s hour for bed.  Sure enough.  Her little hands shut up the piano, and neatly smoothed down the cloth over it.  Then she lit a candle, ran up to her father and kissed him, and in a moment was lost from Bog’s sight in her chamber.  As she disappeared, the boy’s lips murmured “Good-night” with a fervor which made that simple colloquial phrase both a prayer and a blessing.

When Pet had gone, Bog suddenly found that the night had become cold, and that he was beginning to shiver.  So he shut the southeast window, and took a seat by the fire to warm himself before going home.

BOOK FOURTH.

CHILDREN OF THE WORLD.

CHAPTER I.

MYNDERT VAN QUINTEM AND SON.

One morning, when Marcus Wilkeson returned home from a ramble, he found his half-sister Philomela violently dusting the furniture and books of the snug little back parlor.  The air was full of dancing motes, which looked large and suffocating in the sunshine.  Marcus had politely requested his sister, fifty times at least, not to molest that sanctuary of meditation oftener than once a fortnight.  To which she always replied:  “I suppose you great lazy fellows would like to have the cobwebs grow on you.  But you sha’n’t, while I am in the house.”  Then, with a few dexterous flourishes of her cloth, she would start the dust up in a cloud.