r a toothache in his life,
strap one of his legs in a section of water-spout, keep him in a room in
the city for weeks, with the hot weather turned on, and then expect him
to smile and purr and be happy! It is preposterous. I can't be cheerful
or calm.

Your letter is the first consoling thing I have had since my disaster,
ten days ago. It really cheered me up for half an hour. Send me a
screed, Ned, as often as you can, if you love me. Anything will do.
Write me more about that little girl in the hammock. That was very
pretty, all that about the Dresden china shepherdess and the pond-lily;
the imagery a little mixed, perhaps, but very pretty. I didn't suppose
you had so much sentimental furniture in your upper story. It shows how
one may be familiar for years with the reception-room of his neighbor,
and never suspect what is directly under his mansard. I supposed your
loft stuffed with dry legal parchments, mortgages, and affidavits; you
take down a package of manuscript, and lo! there are lyrics and sonnets
and canzonettas. You really have a graphic descriptive touch, Edward
Delaney, and I suspect you of anonymous love-tales in the magazines.

I shall be a bear until I hear from you again. Tell me all about your
pretty inconnue across the road. What is her name? Who is she? Who's her
father? Where's her mother? Who's her lover? You cannot imagine how
this will occupy me. The more trifling, the better. My imprisonment has
weakened me intellectually to such a degree that I find your epistolary
gifts quite considerable. I am passing into my second childhood. In a
week or two I shall take to India rubber rings and prongs of coral.
A silver cup, with an appropriate inscription, would be a delicate
attention on your part. In the mean time, write!

IV.

EDWARD DELANEY TO JOHN FLEMMING.

August 12, 1872.

The sick pasha shall be amused. Bismillah! he wills it so. If the
story-teller becomes prolix and tedious--the bow-string and the sack,
and two Nubians to drop him into the Piscataqua! But truly, Jack, I have
a hard task. There is literally nothing here--except the little girl
over the way. She is swinging in the hammock at this moment. It is to
me compensation for many of the ills of life to see her now and then put
out a small kid boot, which fits like a glove, and set herself going.
Who is she, and what is her name? Her name is Daw. Only daughter if
Mr. Richard W. Daw, ex-colonel and banker. Mother dead. One