"When I settle down, I should like to marry a girl like her. But fancy old Uncle Ned having raised such a paragon! It seems too good to be true."
"You met him while you were abroad, I suppose?"
"If I had known the kind of family he had, I should have made a point of looking him up. But, as it was, I missed him. I must have been within reach of him several times when I was in India. He held some position under the government, I believe, and it obliged him to travel about a good deal. But—well, there were other circumstances: it would have been awkward. Things don't always come out just right when one knocks about the world as I do. But then few people are such fools as I am!" Here Henry shook his head, unscrewed his flask, and took a pull, after offering it to me. "My last friend!" he said, with a laugh, as he returned it to his pocket.
"It is a wonder to me, though," he went on, after a while, "how you manage to exist in the way you do here, Frank. I always thought, and I say now, that you are the man of the family. John is a good fellow, but he has no brains. I have brains, but I'm a good-for-nothing. You have brains and the practical element too. Father made a great mistake with that primogeniture craze of his. You ought to have been the heir of the Mainwarings. Think what might be done in this country with sixty thousand a year! And what is Jack doing with it, I'd like to know! If you had his chance, you'd make yourself honored and remembered for a hundred years to come. A man with your pale square face and big black eyes can do anything, only give him a start! You could marry Cousin—what's her name?—Sinfire?—odd name, isn't it?—and breed a race that America would be proud to own. If you can get rid of John, I'll make you a present of my birthright," he added, laughing again, as he lighted a cigar.
"The brandy would hurt you less if you didn't smoke so much, Harry," said I.
"No hygiene for me, thank you, doctor," he replied, cheerfully. "I shall live long enough, do what I will. Besides, however good order you might keep me in while I'm here, I should relapse again the moment I got away."
"You're not thinking of leaving us, surely?"
"I don't think of it; but I shall be off before long, just the same. I know my own frailties. Many a time have I come to a place that seemed to be all that the heart of man could desire, and have said to myself that I would never leave it. But after a few days or weeks, as the case might be, I found myself somewhere else. 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in' the place, but in myself, that I'm a vagabond! Con-
