after a while, and finally drove me out of the sitting-room into the
kitchen, where Kitty caused me to laugh by saying Miss Abigail thought
that what I needed was "a good dose of hot-drops," a remedy she was
forever ready to administer in all emergencies. If a boy broke his
leg, or lost his mother, I believe Miss Abigail would have given him
hot-drops.

Kitty laid herself out to be entertaining. She told me several funny
Irish stories, and described some of the odd people living in the town;
but, in the midst of her comicalities, the tears would involuntarily
ooze out of my eyes, though I was not a lad much addicted to weeping.
Then Kitty would put her arms around me, and tell me not to mind it--that
it wasn't as if I had been left alone in a foreign land with no one to
care for me, like a poor girl whom she had once known. I brightened up
before long, and told Kitty all about the Typhoon and the old seaman,
whose name I tried in vain to recall, and was obliged to fall back on
plain Sailor Ben.

I was glad when ten o'clock came, the bedtime for young folks, and old
folks too, at the Nutter House. Alone in the hallchamber I had my cry
out, once for all, moistening the pillow to such an extent that I was
obliged to turn it over to find a dry spot to go to sleep on.

My grandfather wisely concluded to put me to school at once. If I had
been permitted to go mooning about the house and stables, I should have
kept my discontent alive for months. The next morning, accordingly, he
took me by the hand, and we set forth for the academy, which was located
at the farther end of the town.

The Temple School was a two-story brick building, standing in the centre