His mother had died there, and he couldn't bear to know that anybody
else had her rooms; so he kep 'em all, and paid high for 'em, so she
said, and wuz as much to be depended on for punctuality, and honesty, as
the Bank of England, or the mines of Golcondy.

Yes, Miss Plank said that, with all his sociable, pleasant ways with
everybody, he wuz a millionare--made it in sugar, I believe she said--I
know it wuz sunthin' good to eat, and sort o' sweet--it might have been
molasses--I won't be sure.

But anyway he got so awful rich by it that he could live anywhere he wuz
a mind to--in a palace, if he took it into his head to want one.

But instead of branchin' out and makin' a great show, he jest kep right
on a-livin' in the rooms he had took so long ago for his family. But
they had all gone and left him, his mother dead, and his two nieces gone
with their father to California, where they wuz in a convent school.
And he kep right on a-livin' in the old rooms.

Miss Plank told me in confidence, and on the hair-cloth sofa in the
upper hall, that it would be a big wrench if he ever left there.

[Illustration: Miss Plank told me in confidence that it would be a
big wrench if he left.]

She said, "She didn't say it because he wuz a bacheldor and she a
widder, she said it out of pure-respect."

And I believed it, a good deal of the time I did; for good land! she wuz
old enough to be his ma, and more too.