—–­Boarded with her, no doubt.—–­There was somebody by the name of John, I remember perfectly well, lived with her.  I remember both my friends mentioned him, one of them very often.  I wonder if this boy isn’t a son of his!  I asked the Landlady after breakfast whether this was not, as I had suspected, the son of that former boarder.

—­To be sure he is,—­she answered,—­and jest such a good-natur’d sort of creatur’ as his father was.  I always liked John, as we used to call his father.  He did love fun, but he was a good soul, and stood by me when I was in trouble, always.  He went into business on his own account after a while, and got merried, and settled down into a family man.  They tell me he is an amazing smart business man,—­grown wealthy, and his wife’s father left her money.  But I can’t help calling him John,—­law, we never thought of calling him anything else, and he always laughs and says, “That’s right.”  This is his oldest son, and everybody calls him Johnny.  That Boy of ours goes to the same school with his boy, and thinks there never was anybody like him,—­you see there was a boy undertook to impose on our boy, and Johnny gave the other boy a good licking, and ever since that he is always wanting to have Johnny round with him and bring him here with him,—­and when those two boys get together, there never was boys that was so chock full of fun and sometimes mischief, but not very bad mischief, as those two boys be.  But I like to have him come once in a while when there is room at the table, as there is now, for it puts me in mind of the old times, when my old boarders was all round me, that I used to think so much of,—­not that my boarders that I have now a’nt very nice people, but I did think a dreadful sight of the gentleman that made that first book; it helped me on in the world more than ever he knew of,—­for it was as good as one of them Brandreth’s pills advertisements, and did n’t cost me a cent, and that young lady he merried too, she was nothing but a poor young schoolma’am when she come to my house, and now—­and she deserved it all too; for she was always just the same, rich or poor, and she is n’t a bit prouder now she wears a camel’s-hair shawl, than she was when I used to lend her a woollen one to keep her poor dear little shoulders warm when she had to go out and it was storming,—­and then there was that old gentleman,—­I can’t speak about him, for I never knew how good he was till his will was opened, and then it was too late to thank him....

I respected the feeling which caused the interval of silence, and found my own eyes moistened as I remembered how long it was since that friend of ours was sitting in the chair where I now sit, and what a tidal wave of change has swept over the world and more especially over this great land of ours, since he opened his lips and found so many kind listeners.

The Young Astronomer has read us another extract from his manuscript.  I ran my eye over it, and so far as I have noticed it is correct enough in its versification.  I suppose we are getting gradually over our hemispherical provincialism, which allowed a set of monks to pull their hoods over our eyes and tell us there was no meaning in any religious symbolism but our own.  If I am mistaken about this advance I am very glad to print the young man’s somewhat outspoken lines to help us in that direction.