Presently she looked into his face with a changed expression,—­the anxiety of a mother that sees her child suffering.

You are not well,—­she said.

I am never well,—­he answered.—­His eyes fell mechanically on the death’s-head ring he wore on his right hand.  She took his hand as if it had been a baby’s, and turned the grim device so that it should be out of sight.  One slight, sad, slow movement of the head seemed to say, “The death-symbol is still there!”

A very odd personage, to be sure!  Seems to know what is going on,—­reads books, old and new,—­has many recent publications sent him, they tell me,—­but, what is more curious, keeps up with the every-day affairs of the world, too.  Whether he hears everything that is said with preternatural acuteness, or whether some confidential friend visits him in a quiet way, is more than I can tell.  I can make nothing more of the noises I hear in his room than my old conjectures.  The movements I mention are less frequent, but I often hear the plaintive cry,—­I observe that it is rarely laughing of late;—­I never have detected one articulate word, but I never heard such tones from anything but a human voice.

There has been, of late, a deference approaching to tenderness, on the part of the boarders generally, so far as he is concerned.  This is doubtless owing to the air of suffering which seems to have saddened his look of late.  Either some passion is gnawing at him inwardly, or some hidden disease is at work upon him.

—­What’s the matter with Little Boston?—­said the young man John to me one day.—­There a’n’t much of him, anyhow; but ’t seems to me he looks peakeder than ever.  The old woman says he’s in a bad way, ‘n’ wants a nuss to take care of him.  Them nusses that take care of old rich folks marry ’em sometimes,—­’n’ they don’t commonly live a great while after that. No, Sir! I don’t see what he wants to die for, after he’s taken so much trouble to live in such poor accommodations as that crooked body of his.  I should like to know how his soul crawled into it, ‘n’ how it’s goin’ to get out.  What business has he to die, I should like to know?  Let Ma’am Allen (the gentleman with the diamond) die, if he likes, and be (this is a family-magazine); but we a’n’t goin’ to have him dyin’.  Not by a great sight.  Can’t do without him anyhow.  A’n’t it fun to hear him blow off his steam?

I believe the young fellow would take it as a personal insult, if the little gentleman should show any symptoms of quitting our table for a better world.

—­In the mean time, what with going to church in company with our young lady, and taking every chance I could get to talk with her, I have found myself becoming, I will not say intimate, but well acquainted with Miss Iris.  There is a certain frankness and directness about her that perhaps belong to her artist nature.  For, you see, the one thing that marks the true artist is a clear perception and a