You assure me that you sympathize sincerely with K. I. I 've no objection to that; he 'll need all the comfort it can give him when he comes home again, or I 'm much mistaken. With the help of the saints, I 'll teach him the differ between going off with a lady and living with his lawful wife. If he didn't know the distinction before, he shall now! And then you think to terrify me about the state of his health. It won't do, Mr. Tom Purcell. He 'll live to disgrace us this many a year. I know well what his constitution can bear, and what he calls the gout is neither more nor less than the outbreaks of his violent and furious temper! Never flatter yourself, therefore, that you can make any of us uneasy on that score; and if he comes back on a litter, it won't save him. Your "sincere regrets that we ever came abroad" are very elegantly expressed, and require all my acknowledgments. Is n't there anything else you are sorry for? Is n't it grief to you that we never caught the smallpox, or that James was n't transported for forgery? We ought to have stayed at Bruff; and, judging from the charms of your style, I have no doubt that we might have derived great benefit from your vicinity. You are eloquent, too, about expense; and add that you always believed that there was no economy in living abroad. Perhaps not, sir, if one unites foreign vices with home ones; but I beg to say, when we left Dodsborough, I, for one, never contemplated the cost of _two_ establishments,--take that, Mr. Tom Purcell! I wonder at myself how I keep my temper, and condescend to argue with you about points on which an old bachelor, or widower (for it's the same), must necessarily be ignorant. Don't you perceive that for you to discourse on family matters is like a deaf man describing music? And you wind up about the privileges of old friendship, and so on! It's a new notion of friendship that makes a man impudent! Where did you ever hear that knowing people a long time was a reason for insulting them? As to your kind inquiries for the girls, I 'd have liked them as well if not coupled with those "natural fears" for the consequences of foreign contamination. Mary Anne and myself got a hearty laugh out of your terrors; and so I forgive your mention of them. James is quite well; and would, he says, be better, if that remittance you spoke of had arrived. You tell me that the McCarthy legacy is paid, and the money lodged at Latouche's. But what's the use of that? It's here I want it. Find out a safe hand, if you can, and send it over to me; for I 'm resolved to have nothing to do with bills as long as I live.