of him was that of a man in admirable health), presented a problem which, with that curious insouciance of youth, I made no attempt to solve. It was an established fact, however, that he never went out of that house. I can-not vouch so confidently for the cobwebby legend which wove itself about him. It was to this effect: He had formerly been the master of a large merchantman running between New York and Calcutta; while still in his prime he had abruptly retired from the quarter-deck, and seated himself at that windowwhere the out-look must have been the reverse of exhilarating, for not ten persons passed in the course of the day, and the hurried jingle of the bells on Parry’s bakery-cart was the only sound that ever shattered the silence. Whether it was an amatory or financial disappointment that turned him into a hermit was left to ingenious conjecture. But there he sat, year in and year out, with his cheek so close to the Window that the nearest pane became permanently blurred with his breath; for after his demise the blur remained.
In this Arcadian era it was possible, in provincial places, for an undertaker to assume dimensions of a personage. There was a ton in Portsmouthhis name escapes me, but his attributes do notwhose impressiveness made him own brother to the massive architecture of the Stone Church. On every solemn occasion he was the striking figure, even to the eclipsing of the involuntary object the ceremony. His occasions, happily, were not exclusively solemn; he added to his other
