sensical that I could write it over and over again-just for fun!

"So good-bye! good-bye! good-bye! till I wake up once more after a long living sleep of many years, I hope; a sleep filled with happy dreams of you, dear, delightful people, whom I've got to live with and love, and learn to lose once more; and then-no more good-byes! "MARTIA."

So much for Martia-whoever or whatever it was that went by that name in Barty's consciousness.

After such close companionship for so many years, the loss of her-or it-was like the loss of a sixth and most valuable sense, worse almost than the loss of his sight would have been; and with this he was constantly threatened, for he most unmercifully taxed his remaining eye, and the field of his vision had narrowed year by year. But this impending calamity did not frighten him as in the old days. His wife was with him now, and as long as she was by his side he could have borne anything—blindness, poverty, dishonor-anything in the world. If he lost her, he would survive her loss just long enough to put his affairs in order, and no more.

But most distressfully he missed the physical feeling of the north-even in his sleep. This strange bereavement drew him and Leah even more closely together, if that were possible; and she was well content to reign alone in the heart of her fractious, unreasonable but most affectionate, humorous, and irresistible great man. Although her rival had been but a name and an idea, a mere abstraction in which she had never really believed, she did not find it altogether displeasing to herself that the lively Martia was no more; she has almost told me as much.

And thus began for them both the happiest and most beautiful period of their joint lives, in spite of sorrows yet to come. She took such care of him that he might have been as blind as Belisarius himself, and he seemed almost to depend upon her as much-so wrapt up was he in the work of his life, so indifferent to all mundane and practical affairs. What eyesight was not wanted for his pen and pencil he reserved to look at her with-at his beloved children, and the things of beauty in and outside Marsfield: pictures, old china, skies, hills, trees, and river; and what wits remained he kept to amuse his family and his friends-there was enough and to spare.

The older he grew the more he teemed and seethed and bubbled and shone-and set others shining round himeven myself. It is no wonder Marsfield became such a singularly agreeable abode for all who dwelt there, even for the men-servants and the maid-servants, and the birds and the beasts, and the stranger within its gates — and for me a kind of earthly paradise.

And now, gentle reader, I want very badly to talk about myself a little, if you don't mind-just for half a dozen pages or so, which you can skip if you like. Whether you do so or not, it will not hurt you—and it will do me a great deal of good.

I feel uncommonly sad, and very lonely indeed, now that Barty is gone; and with him my beloved comrade Leah.

The only people left to me that I'm really fond of—except my dear widowed sister, Ida Scatcherd-are all so young. They're Josselins, of course-one and all—and they're all that's kind and droll and charming, and I adore them. But they can't quite realize what this sort of bereavement means to a man of just my age, who has

still got some years of life before him, probably - and is yet an old man.

The Right Honorable Sir Robert Maurice, Bart., M. P., etc., etc., etc. That's me. I take up a whole line of manuscript. I might be a noble lord if I chose, and take up two!

I'm a liberal conservative, an opportunist, a pessi-optimist, an in-medio-tutissimist, and attend divine service at the Temple Church.

I'm a Philistine, and not ashamed; so was Molièreso was Cervantes. So, if you like, was the late Martin Farquhar Tupper-and those who read him; we're of all sorts in Philistia, the great and the small, the good and the bad.

Al

I'm in the sixties-sound of wind and limb-only two false teeth-one at each side, bicuspids, merely for show. I'm rather bald, but it suits my style; a little fat, perhaps-a pound and a half over sixteen stone! but I'm an inch and a half over six feet, and very big-boned. together, diablement bien conservé! I sleep well, the sleep of the just; I have a good appetite and a good digestion, and a good conceit of myself still, thank Heaven -though nothing like what it used to be! One can survive the loss of one's self-respect; but of one's vanity,

never.

What a prosperous and happy life mine has been, to be sure, up to a few short months ago hardly ever an ache or a pain!—my only real griefs, my dear mother's death ten years back, and my father's in 1870. Yes, I have warmed both hands at the fire of life, and even burnt my fingers now and then, but not severely.

One love disappointment. The sting of it lasted a couple of years, the compensation more than thirty! I loved her all the better, perhaps, that I did not marry

her. I'm afraid it is not in me to love a very good wife of my own as much as I really ought!

And I love her children as well as if they'd been mine, and her grandchildren even better. They are irresistible, these grandchildren of Barty's and Leah's-mine wouldn't have been a patch on them; besides, I get all the fun and none of the bother and anxiety. Evidently it was my true vocation to remain single-and be a tame cat in a large, warm house, where there are lots of nice children. O happy Bob Maurice! O happy sexagenarian!

66

"O me fortunatum, mea si bona nôrim!" (What would Père Brossard say at this? he would give me a twisted pinch on the arm-and serve me right!)

I'm very glad I've been successful, though it's not a very high achievement to make a very large fortune by buying and selling that which put into a man's mouth is said to steal away his brains!

But it does better things than this. It reconciles and solves and resolves mental discords, like music. It makes music for people who have no ear—and there are so many of these in the world that I'm a millionaire, and Franz

Schubert died a pauper. So I prefer to drink beer-as he did; and I never miss a Monday Pop if I can help it.

I have done better things, too. I have helped to govern my country and make its laws; but it all came out of wine to begin with-all from learning how to buy and sell We're a nation of shopkeepers, although the French keep better shops than ours, and more of them.

I'm glad I'm successful because of Barty, although success, which brings the world to our feet, does not always endear us to the friend of our bosom. If I had been a failure Barty would have stuck to me like a brick, I feel sure, instead of my sticking to him like a leech! And the sight of his success might have soured me—that