"Oh, Mary!" he heard her say once to her old servant; "I am sure he
is trying to help me in his innocent way--I know he is. He looks at me
sometimes with a loving, wondering little look, as if he were sorry for
me, and then he will come and pet me or show me something. He is such a
little man, I really think he knows."

As he grew older, he had a great many quaint little ways which amused
and interested people greatly. He was so much of a companion for his
mother that she scarcely cared for any other. They used to walk together
and talk together and play together. When he was quite a little fellow,
he learned to read; and after that he used to lie on the hearth-rug, in
the evening, and read aloud--sometimes stories, and sometimes big books
such as older people read, and sometimes even the newspaper; and often
at such times Mary, in the kitchen, would hear Mrs. Errol laughing with
delight at the quaint things he said.

"And; indade," said Mary to the groceryman, "nobody cud help laughin' at
the quare little ways of him--and his ould-fashioned sayin's! Didn't
he come into my kitchen the noight the new Prisident was nominated and
shtand afore the fire, lookin' loike a pictur', wid his hands in his
shmall pockets, an' his innocent bit of a face as sayrious as a jedge?
An' sez he to me: 'Mary,' sez he, 'I'm very much int'rusted in the
'lection,' sez he. 'I'm a 'publican, an' so is Dearest. Are you a
'publican, Mary?' 'Sorra a bit,' sez I; 'I'm the bist o' dimmycrats!'
An' he looks up at me wid a look that ud go to yer heart, an' sez he:
'Mary,' sez he, 'the country will go to ruin.' An' nivver a day since
thin has he let go by widout argyin' wid me to change me polytics."

Mary was very fond of him, and very proud of him, too. She had been with