mean time, write!


IV.

EDWARD DELANEY TO JOHN FLEMMING.

August 12, 1872.

The sick pasha shall be amused. Bismillah! he wills it so. If the
story-teller becomes prolix and tedious--the bow-string and the
sack, and two Nubians to drop him into the Piscataqua! But truly,
Jack, I have a hard task. There is literally nothing here--except
the little girl over the way. She is swinging in the hammock at
this moment. It is to me compensation for many of the ills of life
to see her now and then put out a small kid boot, which fits like a
glove, and set herself going. Who is she, and what is her name? Her
name is Daw. Only daughter if Mr. Richard W. Daw, ex-colonel and
banker. Mother dead. One brother at Harvard, elder brother killed
at the battle of Fair Oaks, ten years ago. Old, rich family, the
Daws. This is the homestead, where father and daughter pass eight
months of the twelve; the rest of the year in Baltimore and
Washington. The New England winter too many for the old gentleman.
The daughter is called Marjorie--Marjorie Daw. Sounds odd at first,
doesn't it? But after you say it over to yourself half a dozen
times, you like it. There's a pleasing quaintness to it, something
prim and violet-like. Must be a nice sort of girl to be called
Marjorie Daw.

I had mine host of The Pines in the witness-box last night, and