Happily, his aunt was so engrossed with her own physical troubles, that she never noticed indications of ill health in other people. She held that every other human ailment was unworthy of mention in the presence of her sovereign affliction. Whenever anybody presumed to speak of their little personal sufferings before her, she said: "You should thank Heaven you haven't got the rheumatics," and would then proceed to give a circumstantial history of her acquaintance with that disease. Therefore, on this occasion, she was quite unaware that poor Bog sat opposite to her with a pale, dejected face, playing aimlessly on his plate with his knife and fork. She thought only, and talked only, of her malady, which had been pranking in the oddest manner all day, and had settled, at last, in her "limbs." Bog's aunt had no legs that she would own to. After supper, Bog heaved a sigh, and said that he would go round to Uncle Ith's; and asked his aunt if she had any word to send by him. "Oh, no; nothing partickler," said she. "He don't care about me." Uncle Ith, as everybody called him, was Bog's uncle on his mother's side. Uncle Ith and the aunt had a standing difference touching that rheumatism. Whenever they met--which was rarely--Uncle Ith would ask her, with a wink, how she was; and when she candidly told him that she was in a dreadful state, he would laugh at her, and say that half of it was "imagination." This indignity he had repeated so often, that, latterly, she scorned to complain in his presence, and bore her anguish in noble silence. "All right," said Bog, who took no part in these family differences. He put on his cap, and left the house. CHAPTER IV. UP IN THE AIR.