VII 



Anxiety 203 



of getting killed was as good as ever. When he 

 was in the South Seas she had a most anxious time 

 of it. There would come a letter eloquently setting 

 forth the dangers of coral reefs to navigators, with 

 a good deal about sharks and cannibals ; then 

 silence ; then a paragraph in some newspaper to 

 the effect that a schooner, name unknown, had 

 been wrecked on some South Sea reef or another 

 (in the region where she knew he might be), and 

 that the crew had been massacred and eaten by the 

 natives. Of course having him in North America 

 was no more restful for her. Letters from him were 

 necessarily scarce, and newspaper paragraphs not 

 a bit more reassuring in tone, for they took the 

 form of statements that the Sioux or some other 

 red-skin tribe were on the war-path. Indeed, the 

 worst shock she ever had was when he was away 

 in North America. The last letter she had had 

 from him informed her that Lord Dunraven and 

 himself were going to join General Custer on an 

 expedition, when there came news of the complete 

 massacre of General Custer and his force. A fearful 

 period of anxiety followed, and then came a letter 

 saying that providentially they had been prevented 

 by bad weather from joining General Custer at 

 all. These anxieties, although groundless, were not 

 good for so high-strung and sensitive a woman as 

 my mother. No amount of experience in her 

 husband's habit of surviving ever made her feel he 

 was safe, and her mind was kept in one long nervous 



