After the distinctness of separate characters to which I had recently been accustomed, it perplexed and annoyed me not to be able to resolve this combination of human interests into well-defined elements.It seemed hardly worth while for more than one of those families to be in existence, since they all had the same glimpse of the sky, all looked into the same area, all received just their equal share of sunshine through the front windows, and all listened to precisely the same noises of the street on which they boarded.Men are so much alike in their nature, that they grow intolerable unless varied by their circumstances.
Just about this time a waiter entered my room.The truth was, I had rung the bell and ordered a sherry-cobbler.
"Can you tell me," I inquired, "what families reside in any of those houses opposite?""The one right opposite is a rather stylish boarding-house," said the waiter."Two of the gentlemen boarders keep horses at the stable of our establishment.They do things in very good style, sir, the people that live there."I might have found out nearly as much for myself, on examining the house a little more closely, in one of the upper chambers I saw a young man in a dressing-gown, standing before the glass and brushing his hair for a quarter of an hour together.He then spent an equal space of time in the elaborate arrangement of his cravat, and finally made his appearance in a dress-coat, which I suspected to be newly come from the tailor's, and now first put on for a dinner-party.At a window of the next story below, two children, prettily dressed, were looking out.By and by a middle-aged gentleman came softly behind them, kissed the little girl, and playfully pulled the little boy's ear.It was a papa, no doubt, just come in from his counting-room or office; and anon appeared mamma, stealing as softly behind papa as he had stolen behind the children, and laying her hand on his shoulder to surprise him.Then followed a kiss between papa and mamma; but a noiseless one, for the children did not turn their heads.
"I bless God for these good folks!" thought I to myself."I have not seen a prettier bit of nature, in all my summer in the country, than they have shown me here, in a rather stylish boarding-house.I will pay them a little more attention by and by."On the first floor, an iron balustrade ran along in front of the tall and spacious windows, evidently belonging to a back drawing-room; and far into the interior, through the arch of the sliding-doors, I could discern a gleam from the windows of the front apartment.There were no signs of present occupancy in this suite of rooms; the curtains being enveloped in a protective covering, which allowed but a small portion of their crimson material to be seen.But two housemaids were industriously at work; so that there was good prospect that the boarding-house might not long suffer from the absence of its most expensive and profitable guests.
Meanwhile, until they should appear, I cast my eyes downward to the lower regions.There, in the dusk that so early settles into such places, I saw the red glow of the kitchen range.The hot cook, or one of her subordinates, with a ladle in her hand, came to draw a cool breath at the back door.As soon as she disappeared, an Irish man-servant, in a white jacket, crept slyly forth, and threw away the fragments of a china dish, which, unquestionably, he had just broken.Soon afterwards, a lady, showily dressed, with a curling front of what must have been false hair, and reddish-brown, I suppose, in hue,--though my remoteness allowed me only to guess at such particulars,--this respectable mistress of the boarding-house made a momentary transit across the kitchen window, and appeared no more.It was her final, comprehensive glance, in order to make sure that soup, fish, and flesh were in a proper state of readiness, before the serving up of dinner.
There was nothing else worth noticing about the house, unless it be that on the peak of one of the dormer windows which opened out of the roof sat a dove, looking very dreary and forlorn; insomuch that I wondered why she chose to sit there, in the chilly rain, while her kindred were doubtless nestling in a warm and comfortable dove-cote.All at once this dove spread her wings, and, launching herself in the air, came flying so straight across the intervening space, that I fully expected her to alight directly on my window-sill.In the latter part of her course, however, she swerved aside, flew upward, and vanished, as did, likewise, the slight, fantastic pathos with which I had invested her.
