place among that brutal circle; and there is little
doubt that he retired from the company before the set-to was fairly
begun, and that respectable old Morris went with him. But, at any rate,
they are a noble-looking family, and well brought up. Charley, with all
his pugilism, stands fair for a part at Commencement, they say; and
if you could have seen little Kate teaching her big cousin to skate
backwards, at Jamaica Pond, last February, it would have reminded you
of the pretty scene of the little cadet attitudinising before the great
Formes, in "Figaro." The whole family incline in the same direction;
even Laura, the elder sister,--who is attending a course of lectures on
Hygiene, and just at present sits motionless for half an hour before
every meal for her stomach's sake, and again a whole hour afterwards for
her often (imaginary) infirmities,--even Laura is a perfect Hebe in
health and bloom, and saved herself and her little sister when the boat
upset, last summer, at Dove Harbor,--while the two young men who were
with them had much ado to secure their own elegant persons, without
rendering much aid to the girls. And when I think, Dolorosus, of this
splendid animal vigor of the race of Jones, and then call to mind the
melancholy countenances of your forlorn little offspring, I really think
that it would, on the whole, be unsafe to trust you with that revolver;
you might be tempted to damage yourself or somebody else with it, before
departing for the Rocky Mountains.

Do not think me heartless for what I say, or assume, that, because I
happen to be healthy myself, I have no mercy for ill-health in others.
There are invalids who are objects of sympathy indeed, guiltless heirs
of ancestral disease, or victims of parental folly or sin,--those whose
lives are early blighted by maladies that seem as causeless as they are
cureless,--or those with whom the world has dealt so cruelly that all
their delicate nature is like sweet bells jangled,--or those whose
powers of life are all exhausted by unnoticed labors and unseen
cares,--or those prematurely old with duties and dangers, heroes of
thought and action, whose very names evoke the passion and the pride of
a hundred thousand hearts. There is a tottering feebleness of old age,
also, nobler than any prime of strength; we all know aged men who are
floating on, in stately serenity, towards their last harbor, like
Turner's Old Temeraire, with quiet tides around them, and the b