It was a week, and more, before I had a room to sleep in; and I was forced to lie about on floors, or on benches, wherever my mattress was to be found. At length, by the removal of a young man, I was put up in a small garret room, and in this hole I slept for twelve years. There was one thing, however, which made it endurable; and this was, that the branches of a large buttonwood tree reached up to the window and sheltered it from the afternoon sun; but for this I should have suffered from the heat. Many and many an evening have I been soothed by the gentle rustling of the leaves, as the mild breeze passed over them. It seemed as if the spirit of my mother was there, and I would listen and fancy that I heard her whispering to me, and then I would shut my eyes and let the cool soft air fall on my cheek, and say to myself, Perhaps it is the breath of my mother. To this day, now that I am a man, I still seem to hear that ever-to-beloved voice in the silence of the night, when the summer wind murmurs through the foliage. I used, at that forlorn period of my existence, to give myself up to these delusions till my heart has fairly throbbed with emotion. I looked around for something to love, but no one ever dreamed of me, all were engaged in their business, or when the day closed, in their own amusement; all that I could draw to me was a poor singed cat, which I coaxed into my garret-room, and domesticated there. I rescued her from the gripe of the cook’s son, a hard-hearted little tyrant, who took great pleasure in tormenting animals. But my unfortunate name—that, too, added to my miseries. I told you it was Pan. I was called Pat from the first; but when they found out my father’s name, it was an easy thing to call me Patty Pan; and by this name I went for years. Oh, how hard it was to my sensitive spirit to hear my father’s—my mother’s name turned into ridicule by these inconsiderate and callous people. Every Sunday poor Patrick met me in one of the public squares, and there we would talk together, and he would tell me anecdote after anecdote of my parents and their family, always making them out grandees at home. Both my father and mother were from Scotland, and I learned that my mother had displeased her only brother by her marriage, and that his ill-natured conduct towards her caused them to come to America.