Our Gentleman Boarder 



short space. My Father he treated always 

 with respect, and even affection, and won 

 my Mother's heart by his kindly attentions 

 and his readiness to help with her wool- 

 winding ; he threaded her needles too, and 

 told her he had long done that for his 

 mother, who was an invalid, and considered 

 he could now thread a needle with any 

 woman in England ! With Esther, who 

 was as merry as a June grasshopper in 

 those days, he had many a bantering bout, 

 and he taught us boys several pretty con- 

 juring tricks, and constituted himself umpire 

 in our pillow-fights. 



But with Mary he was a far more serious 

 creature. To her he brouo-ht the treasures 

 of his book-shelf, lending them, or reading 

 them with her if she could but spare the 

 time. And he took great pleasure in 

 listening to her comments and criticism ; 

 for Mary was gifted with a clear, quick 

 mind, and through never having read any 

 but classic, if rather antiquated authors, 

 had unconsciously developed a fine literary 

 taste ; and then too whatever she loved and 

 believed in the books she read, she made 

 her own, in a lasting intimate fashion, hard 

 to find amonof orirls in this generation of 

 cheap periodicals and yellow-back novels. 



Many years before, a little girl, carrying a 



