Miss Plank loved Miss Piddock like a sister; she said that she felt drawed to her from the first, and the drawin's had gone on ever sence--growin' more stronger all the time. Wall, there wuz two elderly men, very respectable, with two wives, one apiece, lawful and right, and their children, and Miss Schack and her three children, and a Mr. Bolster, and that wuz all there wuz of us, includin' and takin' in my pardner and myself. Mr. Freeman wuz very rich, so Miss Plank said, and had three or four splendid rooms, the best--"sweet"--in the house, she said. I spoze she spoke in that way to let us know they wuz furnished _sweet_--that is, I spoze so. His mother had died there, and he couldn't bear to know that anybody else had her rooms; so he kep 'em all, and paid high for 'em, so she said, and wuz as much to be depended on for punctuality, and honesty, as the Bank of England, or the mines of Golcondy. Yes, Miss Plank said that, with all his sociable, pleasant ways with everybody, he wuz a millionare--made it in sugar, I believe she said--I know it wuz sunthin' good to eat, and sort o' sweet--it might have been molasses--I won't be sure. But anyway he got so awful rich by it that he could live anywhere he wuz a mind to--in a palace, if he took it into his head to want one. But instead of branchin' out and makin' a great show, he jest kep right on a-livin' in the rooms he had took so long ago for his family. But they had all gone and left him, his mother dead, and his two nieces gone with their father to California, where they wuz in a convent school. And he kep right on a-livin' in the old rooms. Miss Plank told me in confidence, and on the hair-cloth sofa in the upper hall, that it would be a big wrench if he ever left there. [Illustration: Miss Plank told me in confidence that it would be a big wrench if he left.] She said, "She didn't say it because he wuz a bacheldor and she a widder, she said it out of pure-respect." And I believed it, a good deal of the time I did; for good land! she wuz old enough to be his ma, and more too. But he acted dretful pretty to her, I could see that. Not findin' no fault, eatin' hash jest as calm as if he wuzn't engaged in a strange and mysterious business. For great, _great_ is the mystery of boardin'-house hash. Not a-mindin' the children's noise--indeed, a-courtin' it, as you may say, for he would coax the youngest and most troublesome one away from its tired mother sometimes, and keep it by him at the table, and wait on it. He thought his eyes of children, so Miss Plank said. I might have thought that he took care of the child on its mother's account, out of sentiment instead of pity, if Miss Schack hadn't been as humbly as humbly could be, and a big wart on the end of her nose, and a cowlick. She had three children, and they wuz awful, awful to git along with.