24 The Major and Myself. [JAN. 



raining inhumanly ; he handed me a kind of green sieve, fastened to a 

 stick. 



" God bless you, my dear boy, Jack !" said the Major, and wrung my 

 hand ; " I shall see you again." 



I ran half the length of the street, and stopped. I looked back. The 

 Major was still upon the door-steps, with the candle flaring in his hand. 

 He turned, and went into the house. 



I never saw him more ! 



One evening, as I sat dyspepsically at my accustomed box in the 

 coffee-room, amusing my leisure by committing to memory the births, 

 marriages, and deaths, and observing how ludicrously some of the first 

 had slipped down into the third, since my last review of those interesting 

 memorials ; I repeat, I sat thus employed, when my friend, Lieutenant 

 Jacks (whom I have erewhile remembered), entered the room. To start 

 up, and crush the paralyzed paw of that martial man, was the work of an 

 instant ; to compel him to a seat, the employment of another. 



But Jacks drooped strangely gloom, of the most decided character, 

 overspread the inane diameter of that absurdly idiotic face ; he sighed 

 jEolianly by gusts. What could he have to communicate ? I knew 

 he was just arrived from India; probably a letter from the Major for 

 which I tendered my hand ; but, having sorted to his satisfaction the 

 figures of his rhetoric, Jacks ejaculated, 



" Jack, your uncle is no more ! A determination of bullets to the 

 head, my dear fellow ! Here are his watch, seals, arid ring. I have 

 communicated the intelligence to your aunt." He ended, mum- 

 bling, and formed grimaces hitherto unknown. 



I saw him not I heard him no longer I answered him not. My 

 heart was too full for endurance ; and, covering my face, I dropt my 

 head upon' the table, and burst into an agony of tears. 



All that the Major had done for me all his kindness, his affection i 

 rushed into my mind at once. Every kind and every unkind word he 

 had ever spoken to me but, more than all, my many follies and ungrate- 

 ful returns of his generosity all that might have caused a pang of dis- 

 quietude to him came, now that he could no longer be sensible of my 

 regret, like the very retribution of the grave itself ! 



The Major was, in truth, the only one in the whole world for whom I 

 had ever cared a rush. He was gone ! 



I have done. The portrait of the Major, as I conclude my last glass, 

 seems to smile benignantly upon me. Yes there was a happiness, 

 unknown at the time, in those admirable retrenchments those salutary 

 withholdings of wealth, which I more than fear I may yet live to envy. 

 Our very miseries, remembered, turn int6 motives and superinducements 

 of happiness. In fact, the only happiness I now enjoy is the pleasing 

 satisfaction of knowing how wretched I have been a kind of enjoy- 

 ment which, as far as appearances go, I think not unlikely to continue. 

 Be it so ! " Worse than the worst content." 



