Mrs. Flin seemed to her new lodgers to be a quiet kind of body, keeping
her own house without minding much about her neighbors. The truth of it
was she held herself a good deal above them, for she was well to do in
the world. Besides she visited in the next street at the large white
house with green blinds, where they kept a hired girl, and to be sure
she didn't care for the people that took one or two rooms of her, and
lived in a small way, save for the money they paid her; she was pretty
sure to make them all a call once a quarter at least, and woe betide
them if the rent-money was not forthcoming! She didn't call herself a
hard-hearted woman; but she must look out for her own rights since Mr.
Flin was off at sea the greater part of the time, and there was nobody
to take the responsibility from her.
One thing troubled her considerably, and that was that such a
gentlemanly-looking man as Mr. Bond should lavish all his favors and
visits upon her poor lodger's children. She thought he might as well
stop sometimes on the first floor and notice her little Sammy; but he
never did--although she often met him in the entry, and invited him to
walk in and rest before going up the long flights of stairs--but went
panting upward with his gold-headed cane in his hand, and the ruffles to
his shirt rising and falling at every ascent.
Sammy was a sad little rascal, and would throw apple-skins on the entry
floor, and lay round pebbles on the lowest stair, hoping to trip the old
man up as he came in or went out, and Mr. Bond caught him at it, so that
he was always careful afterward to keep an eye to his feet. But the boy
stood in his own light, for there were no favors for him after that. Mr.
Bond never patronized wicked children.
His mother would manage to stand in the door, whenever she saw the
gentleman coming, with Sammy by her side, and she would ask him if he
wasn't fond of children, and tell him what a good boy Sammy was at
school, and how well he got on with his lessons; and then Sammy must
speak his last piece to Mr. Bond. But it would not do; he stood it all
very patiently, and when she had the grace to leave space enough for him
to pass her, he would make his bow and walk gravely on, glad to reach
the shelter of the pleasant attic. Mrs. Flin laid it up against him,
though, and threw out many an innuendo concerning his frequent visits to
the poor children, when gossiping with her friend of the white house,
and so it reached his landlady, Mrs. Kinalden, who knew Mr. and Mrs.
Airly very well.
"A strange how d'ye do it is," said she to Mr. Bond, one evening on his
return from Nannie's, "that I must keep my doors open till half past
nine o'clock, for you to be out on your untimely visits to a poor
widder! It isn't any sich doings Susan Kinalden'll countenance, you'd
better believe!"
Mr. Bond did not think her worth one moment's excitability, so he calmly
told her she could find another occupant for his room if she was
dissatisfied with his conduct, and he would seek a home elsewhere.
It was wonderful how changed she was when he went down to breakfast the
next morning. There were hot eggs beside his plate, and a dish of warm
toast, and the landlady was full of her compliments. "She didn't see how
Mr. Bond managed to look so fresh and young! She was on the sunny side
of fifty, and anybody would take him to be her brother!" and when he
asked her what time he should remove his furniture, she wondered he had
lived so long in the house with her and never yet found out her jesting
propensities. She's sure she couldn't desire a nicer or more circumspect
boarder than Mr. Bond! And so the matter passed over. She knew her own
interest too well to venture on forbidden ground again. And he had got
attached to the room, and did not care to leave it. The portrait had
occupied that same space for more than ten years, and there was a sacred
sort of feeling about the place that he could not find elsewhere. Puss
liked her quarters too, and it was not worth while to seek a change so
long as she didn't complain. Mr. Bond thought himself very foolish to
have proposed such a thing, and he went from his breakfast and settled
himself in his chair by his center-table, with a self-gratulation that
he hadn't got to move after all. As for Mrs. Kinalden, she could
scarcely forgive herself for incurring the risk of losing one of her
best and most permanent boarders, and her night had been spent in bitter
self-reproaches and regrets. The morning, however, compensated for the
night of grief, when she felt that Mr. Bond--good soul!--overlooked it
all, and was willing to stay. "It stands you in hand to mind your
tongue, though, Susan Kinalden," soliloquized she, as she wiped the last
dish and stood it up end-wise in her pantry. "It isn't the first time
you've come nigh biting your own head off!"