how miserly old Jamie had become, and supposed that his salary all went to her. While Jamie could take care of her, it mattered little what the worthless husband did, save the pain of Jamie's knowing it. And of course they did not know that Jamie could no longer take care of her, and why.
But one day, in the spring of 185-, a New York correspondent of the bank came on to Boston, and Mr. Bowdoin gave a dinner for him at the house. The dinner was at three o'clock; but old lady Bowdoin wore her best gown of tea-colored satin, and James Bowdoin and his wife were there. After dinner, the three gentlemen sat discussing old madeira, and old and new methods of banking, and the difference between Boston and New York, which was already beginning to assume a metropolitan preëminence.
"By the way, speaking of old-fashioned ways," said the New Yorker suddenly, "that's a queer old clerk of yours,—Mr. McMurtagh, I mean."
"Looks as if he might have stepped out of one of Dickens's novels, does he not?" said Mr. Bowdoin, always delighted to have Jamie's peculiarities appreciatively mentioned.
