ere, again, if you love the
picturesque--"

"My dear," said Mrs. Hockin, gently, "you always were eloquent from the
first day I saw you; and if you reconstitute our borough, as you hope,
and enter Parliament for Bruntsea, what a sensation you will create!
But I wished to draw your attention to the fact that Erema is waiting to
tell her tale."

"To be sure. I will not stop her. Eloquence is waste of time, and I
never yet had half a second to spare. Fear no eloquence from me; facts
and logic are my strong points. And now, Erema, show what yours are."

At first this made me a little timid, for I had never thought that any
strong points would be needed for telling a simple tale. To my mind the
difficulty was, not to tell the story, but to know what to make of it
when told; and soon I forgot all about myself in telling what I had
seen, heard, and found.

The Major could not keep himself from stamping great holes through
his--something I forget the name of, but people sow it to make turf
of chalk--and dear "Aunt Mary's" soft pink cheeks, which her last
grandchild might envy, deepened to a tone of rose; while her eyes, so
full of heavenly faith when she got upon lofty subjects, took a most
human flash and sparkle of hatred not theological.

"Seven!" she cried; "oh, Nicholas, Nicholas, you never told me there
were seven!"

"There were not seven graves without the mother," the Major answered,
sternly. "And what odds whether seven or seventy? The criminality is the
point, not the accumulation of results. Still, I never heard of so big a
blackguard. And what did he do next, my dear?"

The way in which they took my story was a great surprise to me, because,
although they were so good, they had never paid any attention to it
until it became exciting. They listened with mere politeness until the
scent of a very wicked man began to taint my narrative; but from that
moment they drew nearer, and tightened their lips, and held their
breath, and let no word escape them. It made me almost think that
people even of pure excellence, weaned as they are from wicked things by
teaching and long practice, must still retain a hankering for them done
at other people's cost.

"And now," cried the Major, "let us see it"--even before I had time to
pull it out, though ready to be quick, from a knowledge of his ways.
"Show it, and you shall have my opinion. And Mary's is certain to agree
with mine. My dear, that makes yours so priceless."

"