“Oh, uncle! How can you ask?”
There was a sly gleam in the corner of his eye.
“Ah! just so. That’s it. How can I ask?”
But his face sobered. He handed the letter to his new nephew.
“Jabez, I think you had better carry it to your own room for private perusal. I will communicate its contents to all whom it may concern besides.”
Jabez had deep feelings, though he was not demonstrative, and long before he had mastered its contents he was thankful for the delicacy which had spared him an open display of irrepressible emotion.
The writer, who was stationed at Malta, after dwelling on his own promotion, and answering sundry maternal questions relative to himself, went on to say—
“And so our Nell’s going to be married. Well, it’s about time—she’ll be twenty-six next April, or I’ve lost my reckoning.
“And so she was fretting herself to fiddle-strings for a fellow younger than herself, and without a shilling or a name, when she might have had a finer fellow, with name and shiners to boot. Bravo! Nell, for choosing a brave lad instead of a money-bag! She’s the sister for a sailor, whatever Charlotte may think.
“But your story of the flood and the cradle, and your mention of Mr. Travis, coming both together, recall a story I had forgotten, which may perhaps furnish a name for Nell’s hero of the Irk and Peterloo.