Bold as I spoke, I saw two Majors and half-a-dozen fireplaces, and when
the poor Major put one of his neat bright-varnished boots upon the fender
and his elbow on his knee and his head upon his hand and rocked himself a
little to and fro, I was dreadfully cut up.

"But" says I clearing my throat "you have so well prepared him Major--he
has had such a Tutor in you--that he will have none of the first drudgery
to go through. And he is so clever besides that he'll soon make his way
to the front rank."

"He is a boy" says the Major--having sniffed--"that has not his like on
the face of the earth."

"True as you say Major, and it is not for us merely for our own sakes to
do anything to keep him back from being a credit and an ornament wherever
he goes and perhaps even rising to be a great man, is it Major? He will
have all my little savings when my work is done (being all the world to
me) and we must try to make him a wise man and a good man, mustn't we
Major?"

"Madam" says the Major rising "Jemmy Jackman is becoming an older file
than I was aware of, and you put him to shame. You are thoroughly right
Madam. You are simply and undeniably right.--And if you'll excuse me,
I'll take a walk."

So the Major being gone out and Jemmy being at home, I got the child into
my little room here and I stood him by my chair and I took his mother's
own curls in my hand and I spoke to him loving and serious. And when I
had reminded the darling how that he was now in his tenth year and when I