"My dear Tom!" Miss Chris cheerfully remonstrated. She had long been
reconciled to her brother's swearing propensities, which she regarded as
an amiable eccentricity to be overlooked by a special indulgence
accorded the male sex, but she never knew just how to meet him in a
discussion of the servants.

"What is to be done about it?" she inquired gravely. "Claudius left here
at the beginning of the war, Aunt Griselda says, and he has never been
back until now. It seems he has brought his family. He has
lung-trouble."

"Done about it!" repeated the general heatedly. "What's to be done about
it? Why, the rascal can't starve. I've just told Sampson to wheel him
down a barrel of meal. Oh, they'll break me! I shan't have a morsel
left!"

The next time it was an opposite grievance.

"What do you reckon's happened now?" he asked, marching into the brick
storeroom, where his sister was slicing ripe, red tomatoes into a blue
china bowl. "What do you think that fool Ish has done?"

Miss Chris looked up attentively, her large, fresh-coloured face
expressing mild apprehension. She had rolled back her linen sleeves, and
the juice of the tomatoes stained her full, dimpled wrists.

"He hasn't killed himself?" she inquired anxiously.

"Killed himself?" roared the general. "He'll live forever. I don't
believe he'd die if he were strung up with a halter round his neck.