Page:Tales of Three Cities (Boston, James R. Osgood & Co., 1884).djvu/20

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THE IMPRESSIONS OF A COUSIN.

service; but he never finishes it up,—never arrives. She has not seen him for three years; he certainly, I think, ought to have come out to her in Europe. She does n't know that, and I have n't cared to suggest it, for she wishes (very naturally) to think that he is a pearl of trustees. Fortunately he sends her all the money she needs; and the other day he sent her his brother, a rather agitated (though not in the least agitating) youth, who presented himself about lunch-time,—Mr. Caliph having (as he explained) told him that this was the best hour to call. What does Mr. Caliph know about it, by the way? It 's little enough he has tried! Mr. Adrian Frank had of course nothing to say about business; he only came to be agreeable, and to tell us that he had just seen his brother in Washington—as if that were any comfort! They are brothers only in the sense that they are children of the same mother; Mrs. Caliph having accepted consolations in her widowhood, and produced this blushing boy, who is ten years younger than the accomplished Caliph. (I say accomplished Caliph for the phrase. I haven't the least idea of his accomplishments. Somehow, a man with that name ought to have a good many.) Mr. Frank, the second husband, is dead as well as herself, and the young man has a very good fortune. He is shy and simple, colors immensely and becomes alarmed at his own silences; but is tall and straight and clear-eyed, and is, I imagine, a very estimable youth. Eunice says that he is as different as pos-