vice in this medal, if it could buy back my leg,
or if I could bargain it away for forty thousand a year? No, sirs, its
value is this,--that when I wear it on my breast, men shall say, 'That
formal old fellow is not so useless as he seems. He was one of those who
saved England and freed Europe.' And even when I conceal it here," and,
devoutly kissing the medal, Uncle Roland restored it to its ribbon and
its resting-place, "and no eye sees it, its value is yet greater in the
thought that my country has not degraded the old and true principles of
honor, by paying the soldier who fought for her in the same coin as
that in which you, Mr. Jack, sir, pay your bootmaker's bill. No, no,
gentlemen. As courage was the first virtue that honor called forth, the
first virtue from which all safety and civilization proceed, so we do
right to keep that one virtue at least clear and unsullied from all
the money-making, mercenary, pay-me-in-cash abominations which are the
vices, not the virtues, of the civilization it has produced."

My Uncle Roland here came to a full stop; and, filling his glass, rose
and said solemnly: "A last bumper, gentlemen,--'To the dead who died for
England!'"

CHAPTER III.

"Indeed, my dear, you must take it. You certainly have caught cold; you
sneezed three times together."

"Yes, ma'am, because I would take a pinch of Uncle Roland's snuff, just
to say that I had taken a pinch out of his box,--the honor of the thing,
you know."

"Ah, my dear! what was that very clever remark you made at the same
time, which so pleased your father,--something about Jews and the
college?"

"Jews and--oh! pulverem Olympicum collegisse juvat, my dear
mother,--which means that it is a pleasure to take a pinch out of a
brave man's snuff-box. I say, mother, put down the posset. Yes, I'll
take it; I will, indeed. Now, then, sit here,--that's right,--and tell
me all you know about this famous old Captain. Imprimis, he is older
than my father?"

"To be sure!" exclaimed my mother, indignantly. "He looks twenty years
older; but there is only five years' real difference. Your father must
always look young."

"And why does Uncle Roland put that absurd French de before his name;
and why were my father and he not good friends; and is he married; and
has he any children?"

Scene of this conference: my own little room, new papered on purpose for
my return for good,--trellis-work paper, flowers and birds, all so
fresh and so n