not see how distracted I was, and full of what I had heard overnight,
but insisted on dragging me off to the bank, that being in his opinion
of more importance than old stories. I longed to ask Betsy some
questions which had been crowding into my mind as she spoke, and while
I lay awake at night; however, I was obliged to yield to the business of
the morning, and the good Major's zeal and keen knowledge of the world;
and he really gave me no time to think.

"Yes, I understand all that as well as if I had heard every word of it,"
he said, when he had led me helpless into the Hansom cab he came in, and
had slammed down the flood-gates in front of us. "You must never think
twice of what old women say" (Mrs. Strouss was some twenty years younger
than himself); "they always go prating and finding mares'-nests, and
then they always cry. Now did she cry, Erema?"

I would have given a hundred dollars to be able to say, "No, not one
drop;" but the truth was against me, and I said, "How could she help
it?"

"Exactly!" the Major exclaimed, so loudly that the cabman thought he was
ordered to stop. "No, go on, cabby, if your horse can do it. My dear, I
beg your pardon, but you are so very simple! You have not been among the
eye-openers of the west. This comes of the obsolete Uncle Sam."

"I would rather be simple than 'cute!'" I replied; "and my own Uncle Sam
will be never obsolete."

Silly as I was, I could never speak of the true Uncle Sam in this far
country without the bright shame of a glimmer in my eyes; and with this,
which I cared not to hide, I took my companion's hand and stood upon the
footway of a narrow and crowded lane.

"Move on! move on!" cried a man with a high-crowned hat japanned at
intervals, and, wondering at his rudeness to a lady, I looked at him.
But he only said, "Now move on, will you?" without any wrath, and as if
he were vexed at our littleness of mind in standing still. Nobody heeded
him any more than if he had said, "I am starving," but it seemed a rude
thing among ladies. Before I had time to think more about this--for
I always like to think of things--I was led through a pair of narrow
swinging doors, and down a close alley between two counters full of
people paying and receiving money. The Major, who always knew how to get
on, found a white-haired gentleman in a very dingy corner, and whispered
to him in a confidential way, though neither had ever seen the other
before, and the white-haired gen