"Then," says I, drove out of all patience with her, "I wish you was
there now, both of you. I wish," says I, lookin' fixedly on her, "I
wish you was both of you in posterity now."




Fitzhugh Ludlow

SELECTIONS FROM A BRACE OF BOYS


I am a bachelor uncle. That, as a mere fact, might happen to anybody;
but I am a bachelor uncle by internal fitness. I am one essentially,
just as I am an individual of the Caucasian division of the human
race; and if, through untoward circumstances--which heaven forbid--I
should lose my present position, I shouldn't be surprised if you saw
me out in the _Herald_ under "Situations Wanted--Males." Thanks
to a marrying tendency in the rest of my family, I have now little
need to advertise, all the business being thrown into my way which a
single member of my profession can attend to.

I meander, like a desultory, placid river of an old bachelor as I am,
through the flowery mead of several nurseries, but I am detained
longest among the children of my sister Lu.

Lu married Mr. Lovegrove. He is a merchant, retired with a fortune
amassed by the old-fashioned, slow processes of trade, and regards
the mercantile life of the present day only as so much greed and
gambling Christianly baptized.... Lu is my favorite sister; Lovegrove