"I have not yet finally accepted the offer, but I am going to do so--obtaining, as a matter of form, the sanction of the Assembly. I have made them double their offer to me, but in the public documents the money is to stand at the original figure. This recognition of my services, together with my little savings (restored, my dear Martin, to the washstand), will make me pretty comfortable in my old age, and leave a competence for my widow. Aureataland has had a run alone; if there had been any grit in the people they would have made a nation of themselves. There isn't any, and I'm not going to slave myself for them any longer. No doubt they'll be very well treated, and to tell the truth, I don't much care if they aren't. After all, they're a mongrel lot. "I know you'll be pleased to hear of this arrangement, as it gives your old masters a better chance of getting their money, for, between ourselves, they'd never have got it out of me. At the risk of shocking your feelings, I must confess that your revolution only postponed the day of repudiation. "I hoped to have asked you some day to rejoin us here. As matters stand, I am more likely to come and find you; for, when released, Christina and I are going to bend our steps to the States. And we hope to come soon. There's a little difficulty outstanding about the terms on which the Golden House and my other property are to pass to the new Government; this I hope to compromise by abating half my claim in private, and giving it all up in public. Also, I have had to bargain for the recognition of Johnny Carr's rights to the colonel's goods. When all this is settled there will be nothing to keep me, and I shall leave here without much reluctance. The first man I shall come and see is you, and we'll have some frolics together, if my old carcass holds out. But the truth is, my boy, I'm not the man I was. I've put too much steam on all my life, and I must pull up now, or the boiler will burst. "Christina sends her love. She is as anxious to see you as I am. But you must wait till I am dead to make love to her. Ever your sincere friend, "MARCUS W. WHITTINGHAM." As I write, I hear that the arrangement is to be carried out. So ends Aureataland's brief history as a nation; so ends the story of her national debt, more happily than I ever thought it would. I confess to a tender recollection of the sunny, cheerful, lazy, dishonest little place, where I spent four such eventful years. Perhaps I love it because my romance was played there, as I should love any place where I had seen the signorina. For I am not cured. I don't go about moaning--I enjoy life. But, in spite of my affection for the President, hardly a day passes that I don't curse that accursed tree-root. And she? what does she feel?