I must say, I was pleased with a certain tenderness they all showed toward us, after the first excitement of the news was over.

It came out in trivial matters,--but each one, in his or her way, manifested kindness.
Our landlady, for instance, when we had chickens, sent the LIVER instead of the GIZZARD, with the wing, for the schoolmistress.
This was not an accident; the two are never mistaken, though some landladies APPEAR as if they did not know the difference.

The whole of the company were even more respectfully attentive to my remarks than usual.

There was no idle punning, and very little winking on the part of that lively young gentleman who, as the reader may remember, occasionally interposed some playful question or remark, which could hardly be considered relevant,--except when the least allusion was made to matrimony, when he would look at the landlady's daughter, and wink with both sides of his face, until she would ask what he was pokin' his fun at her for, and if he wasn't ashamed of himself.

In fact, they all behaved very handsomely, so that I really felt sorry at the thought of leaving my boarding-house.
I suppose you think, that, because I lived at a plain widow-woman's plain table, I was of course more or less infirm in point of worldly fortune.