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WHEN Mr. Tremlett came down to breakfast, he discovered
that something had occured to ruffle the temper of
his house-keeper, for that respectable old lady made a display
of some of the most dignified airs that were probably ever
seen in a republican country. And she did not allow him to
remain long in ignorance of the cause of her unusual stateliness
of demeanor.

“That little scamp,” said Mrs. Swazey, as she filled up Mr.
Tremlett's cup, “is the greatest villian; the greatest villain,”
she repeated again, giving the coffee urn an emphatic shake,
“in the individual world.”

“I am afraid he is a rogue,” said Mr. Tremlett.

“I can dispel all your fears on that subject,” said the dignified
lady; “I know he is.”

“Has he made his escape?” inquired Mr. Tremlett.

“No Sir, he has not, but I reckon he will;” replied the lady,
“for this house is not big enough to hold him and me, big as
it is.”

Mr. Tremlett thought to himself, as he swallowed his coffee,
that he had some right to be heard in the matter; and he
determined that the boy should remain, if it were only to convince
his housekeeper that he would do as he pleased in his
own house.

“What has the boy done?” asked Mr. Tremlett.

“Every thing,” replied the lady; “he abused me in the
shamefulest manner.”

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“But you must make allowance for the poor child's education,”
said Mr. Tremlett; “consider that he has not had the
advantages of other children.”

“I can consider nothing as an excuse for unnatural conduct,”
replied the lady; “for that shows a natural wickedness
of heart; and I never heard any minister say that we must
forgive unnaturalness, particular in beggars.”

“It is very true,” replied Mr. Tremlett, “that unnatural
conduct, particularly in a child, shows a native wickedness of
heart, that we can hardly hope to correct by education.”

“Very much so indeed,” said Mrs. Swazey, approvingly.

“But I do not understand why the accident of a bad man's
being a beggar, should place him out of the pale of forgiveness.”

“It is a high time of day, to be sure,” said the lady, “if
beggars are to be choosers.” As Mr. Tremlett made no reply
to this conclusive answer, the lady concluded the day was her
own, and proceeded to relate her grievances in a more subdued
tone.

“I was always very partial to children,” she continued,
“particularly boys, although I never had any of my own;
that is, I never have had any,” she said, as if she wished him
to understand that she might have had, if she had been so disposed.
“I always liked boys much better than little girls,
they are so interesting; and when I was president of the Good
Samaritan Society, there is no end to the jackets and trowers
I used to make for them, the little darlings!”

“Ah! I dare say,” said Mr. Tremlett.

“Yes, that I did,” continued Mrs. Swazey; “and there is
no knowing what I would have done for this little villain, if
he had behaved himself with the least similitude of respect toward
me.”

“Pray in what manner did he abuse you?” asked Mr.
Tremlett.

“I declare I am afraid to tell you for fear you will throw
him into the street.”

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“O, no, I will not use any violence toward him, I promise
you.”

“Then I will tell;” said Mrs. Swazey, “let the consequences
be what they may. After Bridget had combed his hair and
washed his face, he looked so fresh and so beautiful, and reminded
me so much of my sister's eldest boy, who died three-and-twenty
years ago, that I could not help wanting to kiss
him; and when I made known my wishes to him, instead of
holding up his lips to be kissed, he ran away, and said he
didn't love to kiss old women!”

“O! O!” said Mr. Tremlett, “I shall certainly pull his
ears.”

“I gave them a good smart box, myself,” said Mrs. Swazey;
“but not so much for his imperdence to me, as for calling you
by the most awful name.”

“Oh! indeed! and pray what did he call me?” inquired Mr.
Tremlett, while a slight blush covered his cheek.

“He called you the old covy,” said Mrs. Swazy, speaking
in as solemn a tone as she could.

“The old covy,” exclaimed Mr. Tremlett; “and pray how
did it happen that he called me so?”

“Bridget is a silly, ignorant creature,” replied Mrs. Swazy,
“and she is so wain that she is always fishing after compliments
from every body. She don't care who they come from
if she only gets them. So, while she was washing the boy's
face, she asked him who he loved?—expecting of course, that
he would say her; but he said “the old covey up stairs,”
meaning you; but I gave him such a box on the ears, that he
will not say so again in a hurry, I'll warrant.”

Although Mrs. Swazy had never seen the merchant manifest
any very angry feelings, yet judging from her own passions,
as some foolish persons will do, she expected to see him
fly into a great rage, and throw the young outcast into the
street, at the very least; her astonishment, therefore, may well
be conceived to have been very great, when Mr. Tremlett rose

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up from table, as soon as he had swallowed his coffee, and
going into the kitchen, patted the head of the little vagabond,
with a look in which love and compassion seemed to vie
with each other.

“I declare he is a pretty creature,” said Bridget, who felt
herself at liberty to be as loquacious as she pleased in the
kitchen, although she could not have been prevailed upon to
open her lips before her employer in any other place.

The boy looked up with a confident good-natured smile into
the face of the merchant, but it soon subsided, and gave
place to an expression of awe, as if he was astonished at finding
himself an object of kindly regard; and then a tear dropped
upon his cheek, as the old gentleman continued to stroke
his glossy hair.

“So, then your name is John, and you have got no other
name?”

“Isn't one name enough?” replied the boy.

“Law, now, was there ever!” said Bridget, who stood looking
upon him as fondly as though she had been his mother.

“No, no; one name is not enough, my little fellow;” said
Mr. Tremlett, “and you shall have another.”

And then the boy looked very seriously, first at the old
merchant, and then at Bridget, as if wondering in his little
mind what it could all mean. And well he might wonder
for such treatment was strangely unlike any he had ever experienced
before. Kicks and cuffs he would have taken quite
as a matter of course, but kind words and caresses were to him
a new species of human treatment. Mr. Tremlett had already
overstayed his usual breakfast hour, but before he went down
to his counting room, he gave Bridget and Mrs. Swazy strict
orders to treat the boy well, and not allow him to escape.
The last injunction was quite unnecessary, for the youngster
evinced the most perfect satisfaction with his present quarters
and had made himself quite at home in the kitchen.

But Mr. Tremlett had no sooner closed the door behind

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him, than Mrs. Swazy bounced into the kitchen, to relieve
herself of a few choice expressions, which having been coined
in her imagination, might have produced very serious consequences
if she had not let them escape by the proper outlet.
So some youthful poet, having written a string of the most
original verses, would infallibly fall into the worst state of
that melancholy disorder which manifests itself by a turn
over shirt collar, and a fondness for gin, were it not for the
relief he is sure to find, by sending them off to some ogre of
the public press, who will take no more notice of them than
the most swinish porker would of an orient pearl.

“Well, I wonder what is going to happen next!” exclaimed
Mrs. Swazy. “I do wonder if the world is coming to an
end, or if the millenium is going to happen! Of all the
goings on that ever I did hear of, this beats the Dutch! I
wonder if some people thinks that some folks has nothing to
do but to take care of Irish brats. If some people has a mind
to be unginteel, I know of some folks that wont be. The goodnees
be praised, I am no matron yet! I desire to be thankful I
come from as ginteel a family as some folks, if I aint quite as
rich; for my part, the goodness knows I don't care for any
body's money. My grandfather, which was a merchant in the
revolution, was almost as rich as King George himself; but
the way some folks takes on about a little money, is enough
to make some people sick. For my part, the goodness knows
if there is any thing I hate and detest, it's airs.”

Mrs. Swazy delivered herself of a good many more remarks
about `some folks,' and `some people' receiving not a few
sympathetic exclamations from Bridget, who listened to the
outbreak of the good house-keeper with as much eagerness as
though it had been a confidential communication of the very
choicest scandal. At length the good lady's mind being partially
relieved, she sought farther ease by cuffing the ears of
our hero, who having taken off the keen edge off his appetite

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with a plate of buttered toast, was now striving to satisfy himself
with some crusts of bread, and a saucer full of molasses.
The little fellow, having been all his life used to such compliments
as kicks and cuffs, instead of setting up a piteous
howl, as some children who had been more tenderly reared
would have done, applied an epithet to the house-keeper which
it is hoped he did not fully understand, although the fact
of his immediately taking to his heels would seem to imply
that he did. Mrs. Swazey did not stop to ask for an explanation,
but taking hold of a mop-stick, she gave chase, followed
by Bridget with no other instrument of destruction than
the two broad hands with which Nature had generously endowed
her. The youngster made good use of his legs, for
he knew by actual observation that the expression he had
used was fitted above every other epithet in the language to
rouse the feminine ire of even a less susceptible person than
Mrs. Swazey; and to one of her genteel pretensions, he
rightly supposed, it would be particularly wrath-provoking.
And fortunate was it, both for him and you, gentle reader,
that his heels were light and his limbs supple, for if she had
overtaken him in the first effusion of her wrath, it is probable
that his career and consequent history, would have been
brought to a sudden conclusion.

It happened, unfortunately, that there was but one stair-case
to Mr. Tremlett's house, it being fashionably built, up
which the boy flew with the ease and swiftness of a squirrel
leaping from branch to branch of a tree, without stopping
to reflect that his retreat would inevitably be cut off, but up
he mounted until he reached the attic, where he looked about
him with a fluttering heart, and found that there was no possible
chance for escape unless he leaped through one of the
loop-holes in the cornice. Mrs. Swazey was soon within striking
distance of the culprit, but many pursuers before herhave
missed the object of their pursuit, when it has been within
their reach from a too great eagerness to grasp it. Such was

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her eager haste to seize the offender that as the ran towards
him her foot slipped and she prostrated herself in a manner
quite unbecoming in a person of her genteel pretensions. But
the boy scorned to take any other advantage of her accident
than what was necessary for his own preservation; so
regaining the stair-case he ran down with as much celerity
as he had ascended it: but Bridget being stationed at the bottom
of the stairs caught hin in her brawny arms, and in spite
of his kicking and pinching held him fast until Mrs. Swazey
came down.

It was not many minutes before the exasperated lady, with
the aid of Bridget, had placed our hero across her knee, preparatory
to the infliction of a punishment which may justly
be called the martyrdom of childhood, and which is as hurtful
to the tender flesh, as it is mortifying to the feelings, at
that period of our existence, when the door opened and
Mr. Tremlett made his appearance just in time to save the
youngster from an indignity which, though it has doubtless
been inflicted upon the majority of the human species, and
even kings and conquerors have tasted of it, is, nevertheless,
not one of those calamities common to the hero of a romance.

“Tut, tut, tut,” exclaimed Mr. Tremlett with an unusual
warmth of expression, “what's all this?”

Bridget covered her face with her apron, at the sight of her
employer, and fled to the kitchen; and Mrs. Swazey being too
much excited to enter into an explanation, rushed into the
nearest closet and left Mr. Tremlett and the boy together. The
young gentleman was a good deal flustered and somewhat
shamefaced from having been found in such a degrading position,
but he soon regained his composure, and again looked up
into the face of the merchant with that winning look of confident
innocence which had at first made an impression upon
his heart.

“I am afraid that you are a very bad boy,” said Mr. Tremlett,
looking seriously upon him.

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“I will try not to be,” replied the boy, while a tear glistened
in his eye.

“You must not only try, but you must not be, or I shall
not allow you to live with me.” replied Mr. Tremlett.

“And will you let me live with you if I am good? O, I
will be good.”

“Perhaps I may. But I certainly will not if you are bad.
But come, get into my carriage; I am going to take you back
to the asylum, and then I will see whether I will let you live
with me or not.”

Just at that moment a barouche drove up to the door,
into which Mr. Tremlett got, taking the youngster with him,
apparently very much against his will, for he did not by
any means relish the thought of returning to his old quarters
at the Asylum.

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