When they got near the porch, the prudent young gentleman took off his coat, and wrapped the bottle from the too inquiring gaze of his grandmother. Aunt Valeria was in a kind of dream, and didn't seem to notice. "What a perfect evening!" she half whispered, looking up through the trees. "Good-night," said Ethan to his grandmother, trying to get through the ceremony and hold his coat round the bottle on Aunt Valeria's arm at the same time. "Forty-eight years to-day," she went on to her mother, "since Shelley's body was burned on the sands at Viareggio." "Ah, yes," returned the other, speaking very gently. "Good-night, child." "What! Is he _dead_?" said Ethan, feeling a double shock. "Yes, dear; he's dead." And he and Aunt Valeria went up-stairs in the dark. "You never told me," said the child, when they had passed Yaffti in safety. "I s'pose Byron's all right," he added, remembering allusions to that person's physical prowess. "Byron's dead, too," said Aunt Valeria, sadly, "and Keats--poor Keats!" "All _dead_!" They had been referred to as if they lived in the next street. If it had been Shelley who had come to make them a visit, it would have seemed as natural--more natural than the apparition of Tom Rockingham or the objectionable Uncle Elijah. "I'll get a piece of net to put over the bottle while you undress," said Aunt Valeria. When she came back Ethan was in bed. "What relation was Shelley to me?" he asked, welcoming the camphor-bottle to his arms. "Relation? None." "Oh-h!" These things were obscure. The Tallmadges, for instance, weren't related to Grandmamma Gano, so she had said with emphasis. "Then what relation was Shelley to _you_?" "No relation at all, dear. He was an English poet." "You mean he wasn't even born in America?" Ethan sat up straight in his bed. "He was born far away in England," said Aunt Valeria, dreamily. "An' dead an' _burnt_?" "Yes." "And never was no relation to _any_ of us?" "No." "Oh-h!" He lay back on his pillow, conscious of a new loneliness--of being bereft of something he had counted his. Yes; it was just as if some one belonging to him had died. After Aunt Valeria had told him why they had burned Shelley's body, and even after she had repeated all his favorite poems, a sense of loss remained. She thought he was asleep when she kissed him good-night. But he stirred and gave a little sigh. "Well, I'm glad I've got my fireflies, anyhow," he murmured.