onchitis."

These two men, whose different fates are recorded in two paragraphs and
half a dozen lines of the same newspaper, were sisters' sons. In one of
the stories by the present writer, a man is described tottering "up
the steps of the ghaut," having just parted with his child, whom he is
despatching to England from India. I wrote this, remembering in long,
long distant days, such a ghaut, or river-stair, at Calcutta; and a
day when, down those steps, to a boat which was in waiting, came two
children, whose mothers remained on the shore. One of those ladies
was never to see her boy more; and he, too, is just dead in India, "of
bronchitis, on the 29th October." We were first-cousins; had been little
playmates and friends from the time of our birth; and the first house
in London to which I was taken, was that of our aunt, the mother of his
Honor the Member of Council. His Honor was even then a gentleman of
the long robe, being, in truth, a baby in arms. We Indian children were
consigned to a school of which our deluded parents had heard a favorable
report, but which was governed by a horrible little tyrant, who made our
young lives so miserable that I remember kneeling by my little bed of a
night, and saying, "Pray God, I may dream of my mother!" Thence we went
to a public school; and my cousin to Addiscombe and to India.

"For thirty-two years," the paper says, "Sir Richmond Shakespear
faithfully and devotedly served the Government of India, and during that
period but once visited England, for a few months and on public duty. In
his military capacity he saw much service, was present in eight general
engagements, and was badly wounded in the last. In 1840, when a young
lieutenant, he had the rare good fortune to be the means of rescuing
from almost hopeless slavery in Khiva 416 subjects of the Emperor of
Russia; and, but two years later, greatly contributed to the happy
recovery of our own prisoners from a similar fate in Cabul. Throughout
his career this officer was ever ready and zealous for the public
service, and freely risked life and liberty in the discharge of
his duties. Lord Canning, to mark his high sense of Sir Richmond
Shakespear's public services, had lately offered him the Chief
Commissionership of Mysore, which he had accepted, and was about to
undertake, when death terminated his career."

When he came to London the cousins and playfellows of early Indian days
met once again, and shook hands. "Can I