“Aye—a queer set for me to be amongst, a’n’t they? That poor man! Look at his sash;” and she giggled while she showed how a poor idiot was fastened by a leathern belt to a ring in the wall. “He spins a good deal as it is; but if he could walk about, he would do nothing. He has no more sense than a child, and people of that sort are always for tramp, tramp, tramping from morning till night, till it wearies one’s ears to hear them.” And nurse resumed her walk. When she returned to the same place, she went on,— “If these people could be made to hold their tongues, they would be better company; but you never heard such a clatter; they won’t hear one speak. That girl sings to her spinning-wheel the whole day long, and she has but one tune. They say I am growing deaf; but I’m sure I hear that song for ever, as much when she is not singing as when she is. But do you think that I am growing deaf, really now?” Miss Burke could only say that when people got to nurse’s age, and so on. “Well now, ’tis only because of Jupiter,—listening as a watch-planet should, you know. You should have heard his music last night;—that that I used to sing to the little Earles, when master Charles was afraid to go to bed alone because of the ghost-story I told him; and I put him to bed in Miss Emma’s room for once, and nobody knew: so don’t tell my mistress, for she never forgave such a thing.” Miss Burke smiled and sighed; for this master Charles was now a man of forty, and Mrs. Earle had been in her grave nearly twenty years. As the visitor was about to take leave, nurse laid her hand on the lady’s arm, drew up her tight little person to its best advantage, and gravely said, “One thing more, Miss Burke. You will give me leave to ask why I am detained in this place, among idiots and dolts that are no companions for me? This is a poor reward for my long service, and so you may tell Mr. Earle.” “We hoped you had everything comfortable, nurse. You always seem in good spirits.” “Comfortable! You mean as to tea and sugar and shawls; but what is that compared with the company I keep? The Earles don’t know what they miss by what they do. Many a time I would go and see them, and carry them a piece of gingerbread, if I was not prevented.” “Well, nurse, you shall come and see them at our house by and by. In the meanwhile,—you know the boys in the yard are very rude, and they are too apt to teaze old people. We think you are more comfortable out of their way.” Nurse still looked haughty and dissatisfied. “Besides,” continued Miss Burke, “watch-planets are not common, you know; and who knows how they might be treated in the world?” “True, true, true,” cried the delighted old woman. “There are but two in the world besides me, and they are at Canterbury, where my mother lived nurse twenty years. ’Tis only them that study the stars that bow before watch-planets. Well! we shall all study the stars up above, and then will be the time for us watch-planets.”