randchildren--all certain that he was a Solomon.

"Erema," he said, "you are a dear good girl, though sadly, sadly
romantic. I had no idea that you had so much sense. I will talk with
you, Erema, when we both have leisure."

"I am quite at leisure, Major Hockin," I replied, "and only too happy to
listen to you."

"Yes, yes, I dare say. You are in lodgings. You can do exactly as you
please. But I have a basin of ox-tail soup, a cutlet, and a woodcock
waiting for me at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Bless me! I am five minutes
late already. I will come and have a talk with you afterward."

"Thank you," I said; "we had better leave it. It seems of no importance,
compared--compared with--"

"My dinner!" said the Major; but he was offended, and so was I a little,
though neither of us meant to vex the other.

CHAPTER XX

BRUNTSEA

It would be unfair to Major Hockin to take him for an extravagant man or
a self-indulgent one because of the good dinner he had ordered, and his
eagerness to sit down to it. Through all the best years of his life he
had been most frugal, abstemious, and self-denying, grudging every penny
of his own expense, but sparing none for his family. And now, when he
found himself so much better off, with more income and less outlay, he
could not be blamed for enjoying good things with the wholesome zest of
abstinence.

For, coming to the point, and going well into the matter, the Major had
discovered that the "little property" left to him, and which he was come
to see to, really was quite a fine estate for any one who knew how to
manage it, and would not spare courage and diligence. And of these two
qualities he had such abundance that, without any outlet, they might
have turned him sour.

The property lately devised to him by his cousin, Sir Rufus Hockin, had
long been far more plague than profit to that idle baronet. Sir Rufus
hated all exertion, yet could not comfortably put up with the only
alternative--extortion. Having no knowledge of his cousin Nick (except
that he was indefatigable), and knowing his own son to be lazier even
than himself had been, longing also to inflict even posthumous justice
upon the land agent, with the glad consent of his heir he left this
distant, fretful, and naked spur of land to his beloved cousin Major
Nicholas Hockin.

The Major first heard of this unexpected increase of his belongings
while he was hovering, in the land of gold, between his desire to
speculate