However, he was too manly for a single remonstrance, and when Mrs. Prior kissed him good-night at the door, he knelt for his prayers, and hastened to bed with all speed.
When he was safely in bed, and the warmth began to make him feel somewhat less disconsolate, Mrs. Prior came to take away the candle, through fear of imaginary accidents.
"Are you comfortable?" she asked, stopping to look at him, as he lay with his classical head visible above the clothes.
"Very," Paul said.
"Sleep well, and try to be happy," she returned, giving him another kiss, out of the tenderness of her heart.
"Thank you, madame," Paul said, touched, as he always was, by any evidence of kindness. "I like you very much, very much."
Mrs. Prior was not half way down-stairs before Paul was quietly asleep. Fatigue kept him from dwelling upon this new change. Indeed, he had grown so accustomed to removals and strangers that he received them with very different feelings from those which would formerly have troubled him.
CHAPTER XLVI.
JUBE FINDS HIS WAY TO BAYS HOLLOW.
The next morning, while Paul and Rose were playing in the dining-room—the little girl having been granted a holiday on account of the boy's arrival—there arose in the kitchen a sudden commotion, which attracted Mrs. Prior's attention. She went out, and found her little handmaiden in conversation with an immense negro, who looked so good-natured and anxious, that it was a wonder he could have frightened anybody, although the girl appeared somewhat inclined to run away.