"I am a happy man," was the landlord's smiling answer; his fair,
round face, unwrinkled by a line of care or trouble, beaming with
self-satisfaction. "I have always been a happy man, and always
expect to be. Simon Slade takes the world as it comes, and takes
it easy. My son, sir," he added, as a boy, in his twelfth year,
came in. "Speak to the gentleman."

The boy lifted to mine a pair of deep blue eyes, from which
innocence beamed, as he offered me his hand, and said,
respectfully--"How do you do, sir?" I could not but remark the
girl-like beauty of his face, in which the hardier firmness of the
boy's character was already visible.

"What is your name?" I asked.

"Frank, sir."

"Frank is his name," said the landlord--"we called him after his
uncle. Frank and Flora--the names sound pleasant to the ears. But
you know parents are apt to be a little partial and over fond."

"Better that extreme than its opposite," I remarked.

"Just what I always say. Frank, my son,"--the landlord spoke to
the boy--"there's some one in the bar. You can wait on him as well
as I can."

The lad glided from the room in ready obedience.

"A handy boy that, sir; a very handy boy. Almost as good, in the