There was given to the Bourns, then, of old, natures sloping to the Northern side, or they had taken that tendency from experience. Thaddeus Bourn, that elder brother of Simon, who left Hagar so long ago as when Quincy Adams was President, and became a civil flower of society in the city of Hamilton, was a spontaneous variation or reaction from the type. One heard that he had made a fortune airily, and lost it. He surely married another, lost part of that, and his wife of a year or two, who died and surprised him into regretting her with some sincerity. He became an official of the Hamilton County Bank, and floated on in middle life, buoyant, carrying an aroma of old fashions, a flower in his buttonhole, a tall hat, a silver-headed cane. His eyes had wrinkles about them, his cheeks were thin, his foot light. All these were evident elements in the total of Thaddeus, but the total itself was not a sum, but a harmony. To keep the seamy side of life turned down, and its sheen always in the sun, not only was Thaddeus's practice and theory, but he belonged to a distinct school in the practice of the art, which might be called the pseudo-classic. He sat by Helen's bed half a day, and talked to her as to a grown lady, and was gracious and fluent. He brought the best flowers of his worldliness, and jingled all his silver bells to please her. "Not a finer pair of eyes in Hamilton!" he said to the widow. "Positively she must not have a crick in her back. On my word, impossible." "We are taught to submit," said the widow, perhaps placidly, at any rate patiently. Thaddeus mounted the stairs with a wrinkled smile. "Sheep! That woman is a sheep! Helen, my dear, your back will be as straight as my cane, I give you my word." Nellie's lean hands, on the coverlet, and face, with its bacchante spread of hair above her head on the pillow, were losing their brown tan in the passage of slow weeks. The delicate creeping pallor and helplessness beckoned Thaddeus to something tender, but he took council with wisdom. "Uncle Tad," she said, "why do you about always feel good?" "Well, well, I haven't cracked my spine. Never cracked anything but my heart and reputation--a--both of them like old varnish, on my word. Very good, varnish them again. I have"--Thaddeus used his gold eye-glasses gracefully to punctuate, emphasize, distinguish, for illustration, for ornament--"I have the opinion that to feel agreeable and to be agreeable are two habits that one cultivates like a garden. The first is a vegetable, the second a flower. You see? Exactly. In point of fact they are the fruit and flower of the same plant. A--a figure of speech, Nellie. If you kindly wouldn't look at me like the Angel of Judgment. A--look at the ceiling. Thank you." Thaddeus delicately unfolded his theory of the conduct of life, Nellie's grave eyes now and then confusing him with mute challenge.