第53章

Do you think the deformed gentleman means to make love to Iris?--Isaid.

What! Little Boston ask that girl to marry him! Well, now, that's cumin' of it a little too strong.Yes, I guess she will marry him and carry him round in a basket, like a lame bantam: Look here!--he said, mysteriously;--one of the boarders swears there's a woman comes to see him, and that he has heard her singin' and screechin'.

I should like to know what he's about in that den of his.He lays low 'n' keeps dark,--and, I tell you, there's a good many of the boarders would like to get into his chamber, but he don't seem to want 'em.Biddy could tell somethin' about what she's seen when she 's been to put his room to rights.She's a Paddy 'n' a fool, but she knows enough to keep her tongue still.All I know is, I saw her crossin' herself one day when she came out of that room.She looked pale enough, 'n' I heard her mutterin' somethin' or other about the Blessed Virgin.If it had n't been for the double doors to that chamber of his, I'd have had a squint inside before this; but, somehow or other, it never seems to happen that they're both open at once.

What do you think he employs himself about? said I.

The young man John winked.

I waited patiently for the thought, of which this wink was the blossom, to come to fruit in words.

I don't believe in witches,--said the young man John.

Nor I.

We were both silent for a few minutes.

--Did you ever see the young girl's drawing-books,--I said, presently.

All but one,--he answered;--she keeps a lock on that, and won't show it.Ma'am Allen, (the young rogue sticks to that name, in speaking of the gentleman with the diamond,) Ma'am Allen tried to peek into it one day when she left it on the sideboard."If you please," says she,--'n' took it from him, 'n' gave him a look that made him curl up like a caterpillar on a hot shovel.I only wished he had n't, and had jest given her a little sass, for I've been takin' boxin'-lessons, 'n' I 've got a new way of counterin' I want to try on to somebody.

--The end of all this was, that I came away from the young fellow's room, feeling that there were two principal things that I had to live for, for the next six weeks or six months, if it should take so long.These were, to get a sight of the young girl's drawing.

book, which I suspected had her heart shut up in it, and to get a look into the Little Gentleman's room.

I don't doubt you think it rather absurd that I should trouble myself about these matters.You tell me, with some show of reason, that all I shall find in the young girl's--book will be some outlines of angels with immense eyes, traceries of flowers, rural sketches, and caricatures, among which I shall probably have the pleasure of seeing my own features figuring.Very likely.But I'll tell you what I think I shall find.If this child has idealized the strange little bit of humanity over which she seems to have spread her wings like a brooding dove,--if, in one of those wild vagaries that passionate natures are so liable to, she has fairly sprung upon him with her clasping nature, as the sea-flowers fold about the first stray shell-fish that brushes their outspread tentacles, depend upon it, I shall find the marks of it in this drawing-book of hers,--if I can ever get a look at it,--fairly, of course, for Iwould not play tricks to satisfy my curiosity.