The worst of it is that my little sister is now forty-eight, and I--to all intents and purposes--am twenty-five! She is twenty-three years older than I am. She has had thirty years of world-life which I have missed entirely, and this thirty years, I begin to gather, has covered more changes than an ordinary century or two. It is lucky about that mine. "At least I shall not have to worry about money," I said to her when she told me about our increased fortune. She gave one of those queer little smiles, as if she had something up her sleeve, and said: "No; you won't have to worry in the least about money." * * * * * * Having all that medical skill of hers in the background, she took excellent care of me up there on those dreary plains and hills, brought me back to the coast by easy stages, and home on one of those new steamers--but I mustn't stop to describe the details of each new thing I notice! I have sense enough myself, even if I'm not a doctor, to use my mind gradually, not to swallow too fast, as it were. Nellie is a little inclined to manage me. I don't know as I blame her. I do feel like a child, sometimes. It is so humiliating not to know little common things such as everybody else knows. Air ships I expected, of course; they had started before I left. They are common enough, all sizes. But water is still the cheaper route--as well as slower. Nellie said she didn't want me to get home too quick; she wanted time to explain things. So we spent long, quiet hours in our steamer chairs, talking things over. It's no use asking about the family; there is only a flock of young cousins and "once removed" now; the aunts and uncles are mostly gone. Uncle Jake is left. Nellie grins wickedly when she mentions him. "If things get too hard on you, John, you can go down to Uncle Jake's and rest up. He and Aunt Dorcas haven't moved an inch. They fairly barricade their minds against a new idea--and he ploughs and she cooks up on that little mountain farm just as they always did. People go to see them----" "Why shouldn't they?" I asked. And she smiled that queer little smile again. "I mean they go to see them as if they were the Pyramids." "I see," said I. "I might as well prepare for some preposterous nightmare of a world, like--what was that book of Wells', 'The Sleeper Awakened?'" "Oh, yes; I remember that book," she answered, "and a lot of others. People were already guessing about things as they might be, weren't they? But what never struck any of them was that the people themselves could change." "No," I agreed. "You can't alter human nature." Nellie laughed--laughed out loud. Then she squeezed my hand and patted it. "You _Dear_!" she said. "You precious old Long-Lost Brother! When you get too utterly upset I'll wear my hair down, put on a short dress and let you boss me awhile--to keep your spirits up. That was just the phrase, wasn't it?--'You can't alter human nature!'" And she laughed again.