further than he wuz willin' to let us.

All we knew wuz, that though he looked happy and looked good-natured,
back of it all, a-peerin' out sometimes when you didn't look for it, wuz
a sunthin' that looked like the shadder cast from a hoverin'
lonesomeness, and sorrow, and regret.

But he wuz a good-lookin' feller, there hain't a doubt of that, and good
actin' and smart.

He wuz a bacheldor, and we could all see plain that Miss Plank held his
price almost above rubies.

If there wuz any good bits among vittles that wuz always good, it wuz
Miss Plank's desire that he should have them bits; if there wuz drafts
a-comin' from any pint of the compass, it wuz Miss Plank's desire to not
have him blowed on. If any soft zephyr's breath wuz wafted to any one of
us from a open winder on a hot evenin' or sunny noon, he wuz the one she
wanted wafted to, and breathed on.

If her smiles fell warm on any, or all on us, he wuz the one they fell
warmest on. But we all liked him the best that ever wuz. Even Nony
Piddock seemed to sort of onbend a little, and moisten up with the dew
of charity his arid desert of idees a little mite, when he wuz around.

And occasionally, when the bacheldor, whose name wuz Mr. Freeman, when
he would, half in fun and half in earnest, answer Nony's weary and
bitter remarks, once in a while even that aged youth would seem to be
ashamed of himself, and his own idees.