That is why you have heard so little from me. You see the
position at a glance. I have never been to Paris at all, Erema. I have
not rubbed up my parleywoo, with a blast from Mr. Bellows. I was stopped
by a telegram about this job--acrior illum. I had some Latin once, quite
enough for the House of Commons, but it all oozed out at my elbows; and
to ladies (by some superstition) it is rude--though they treat us to bad
French enough. Never mind. What I want to say is this, that I have done
nothing, but respected your sad trouble; for you took a wild fancy to
that poor bedridden, who never did you a stroke of good except about
Cosmopolitan Jack, and whose removal has come at the very nick of time.
For what could you have done for money, with the Yankees cutting each
other's throats, and your nugget quite sure to be annexed, or, at the
very best, squared up in greenbacks?"

"You ought not to speak so, Major Hockin. If all your plans were not
under water, I should be quite put out with you. My cousin was not
bedridden; neither was he at all incapable, as you have called him once
or twice. He was an infinitely superior man to--to what one generally
sees; and when you have heard what I have to tell, in his place
you would have done just as he did. And as for money, and 'happy
release'--as the people who never want it for themselves express
it--such words simply sicken me; at great times they are so sordid."

"What is there in this world that is not sordid--to the young in one
sense, and to the old in another?"

Major Hockin so seldom spoke in this didactic way, and I was so unable
to make it out, that, having expected some tiff on his part at my
juvenile arrogance, I was just in the mould for a deep impression from
sudden stamp of philosophy. I had nothing to say in reply, and he went
up in my opinion greatly.

He knew it; and he said, with touching kindness, "Erema, come and see
your dear aunt Mary. She has had an attack of rheumatic gout in her
thimble-finger, and her maids have worried her out of her life, and
by far the most brilliant of her cocks (worth 20 pounds they tell me)
breathed his last on Sunday night, with gapes, or croup, or something.
This is why you have not heard again from her. I have been in the
trenches day and night, stoning out the sea with his own stones, by a
new form of concrete discovered by myself. And unless I am very much
mistaken--in fact, I do not hesitate to say--But such things are not
in