“From this point,” said the Major, crossing wiry yet substantial legs, “the whole of my little domain may be comprised as in a bird's-eye view. It is nothing, of course, much less than nothing, compared with the Earl of Crowcombe's, or the estate of Viscount Gamberley; still, such as it is, it carries my ideas, and it has an extent of marine frontage such as they might envy. We are asked 5 pounds per foot for a thread of land fronting on a highway, open to every kind of annoyance, overlooked, without any thing to look at. How much, then, per fathom (or measure, if you please, by cable-lengths) is land worth fronting the noble, silent, uncontaminating, healthful sea? Whence can come no coster-mongers' cries, no agitating skir of bagpipes or the maddening hurdy-gurdy, no German band expecting half a crown for the creation of insanity; only sweet murmur of the wavelets, and the melodious whistle of a boatman catching your breakfast lobster. Where, again, if you love the picturesque--” “My dear,” said Mrs. Hockin, gently, “you always were eloquent from the first day I saw you; and if you reconstitute our borough, as you hope, and enter Parliament for Bruntsea, what a sensation you will create! But I wished to draw your attention to the fact that Erema is waiting to tell her tale.” “To be sure. I will not stop her. Eloquence is waste of time, and I never yet had half a second to spare. Fear no eloquence from me; facts and logic are my strong points. And now, Erema, show what yours are.” At first this made me a little timid, for I had never thought that any strong points would be needed for telling a simple tale. To my mind the difficulty was, not to tell the story, but to know what to make of it when told; and soon I forgot all about myself in telling what I had seen, heard, and found. The Major could not keep himself from stamping great holes through his--something I forget the name of, but people sow it to make turf of chalk--and dear “Aunt Mary's” soft pink cheeks, which her last grandchild might envy, deepened to a tone of rose; while her eyes, so full of heavenly faith when she got upon lofty subjects, took a most human flash and sparkle of hatred not theological. “Seven!” she cried; “oh, Nicholas, Nicholas, you never told me there were seven!” “There were not seven graves without the mother,” the Major answered, sternly. “And what odds whether seven or seventy? The criminality is the point, not the accumulation of results. Still, I never heard of so big a blackguard. And what did he do next, my dear?”