“And had dropped you a line?”

“I didn’t reason about it, Wesley; I was paralyzed.  I picked up the paper, and read it, and opened the door, and Mr. Flagg rushed in as if he had been shot out of something.  ‘Don’t want any?’ he shouted.  ’But I do!  I want some breakfast!’ You should have heard him.”

“He stated a fact, at any rate.  To be sure he might have stated it less vivaciously.”  I was beginning to be amused.

“After that he was quieter, and tried to make himself agreeable, and we laughed a little together over my mistake—­that is, he laughed.  Of course I got breakfast for him—­and such a breakfast!”

“He had been without anything to eat since yesterday.”

“I should have imagined,” said Clara, “that he had eaten nothing since the war broke out.”

“Did he say anything in particular about himself?” I asked, with a recurrent touch of anxiety.

“He wasn’t particular what he said about himself.  Without in the least seeing the horror of it, he positively boasted of having been in the rebel army.”

“Yes—­a colonel.”

“That makes it all the worse,” replied Clara.

“But they had to have colonels, you know.”

“Is Mr. Flagg a Virginian, or a Mississippian, or a Georgian?”

“No, my dear; he was born in the State of Maine; but he has lived so long in the South that he’s quite one of them for the present.  We must make allowances for him, Clara.  Did he say anything else?”

“Oh, yes.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he’d come back to supper.”

It was clear that Clara was not favorably impressed by my cousin, and, indeed, the circumstances attending his advent were not happy.  It was likewise clear that I had him on my hands, temporarily at least.  I almost reproach myself even now for saying “on my hands,” in connection with my own flesh and blood.  The responsibility did not so define itself at the time.  It took the form of a novel and pleasing duty.  Here was my only kinsman, in a strange city, without friends, money, or hopeful outlook.  My course lay before me as straight as a turnpike.  I had a great deal of family pride, even if I did not have any family to speak of, and I was resolved that what little I had should not perish for want of proper sustenance.

Shortly before six o’clock Washington Flagg again presented himself at our doorstep, and obtained admission to the house with fewer difficulties than he had encountered earlier in the day.

I do not think I ever saw a man in destitute circumstances so entirely cheerful as my cousin was.  Neither the immediate past, which must have been full of hardships, nor the immediate future, which was not lavish of its promises, seemed to give him any but a momentary and impersonal concern.  At the supper-table he talked much and well, exceedingly well, I thought, except when he touched on the war, which he was continually