good news at all. It is too good to be true, anyway. Don't you see how

our bad luck has worked on me? My hair is getting gray, and many nights

I don't sleep at all. I wish it was all over and we could rest. I wish

we could lie, down and just forget everything, and let it all be just a

dream that is done and can't come back to trouble us any more. I am so

tired."

"Ah, poor child, don't talk like that-cheer up--there's daylight ahead.

Don't give, up. You'll have Laura again, and--Louise, and your mother,

and oceans and oceans of money--and then you can go away, ever so far

away somewhere, if you want to, and forget all about this infernal place.

And by George I'll go with you! I'll go with you--now there's my word on

it. Cheer up. I'll run out and tell the friends the news."

And he wrung Washington's hand and was about to hurry away when his

companion, in a burst of grateful admiration said:

"I think you are the best soul and the noblest I ever knew, Colonel

Sellers! and if the people only knew you as I do, you would not be

tagging around here a nameless man--you would be in Congress."

The gladness died out of the Colonel's face, and he laid his hand upon

Washington's shoulder and said gravely:

I have always been a friend of your family, Washington, and I think I

have always tried to do right as between man and man, according to my

The Gilded Age