Such, unfortunately for me, because of my shortcomings, were Rudley and James, in all things upright and without shred or raveling of any kind. When I came to know how perfect they were, I never through vanity sought to equal them in any great thing, but struggled only to pattern after them in smaller matters, but fruitlessly, as it turned out. Nor was I alone in these efforts, not indeed to achieve preferment, but bear equality in some immaterial thing. For Cousin Rolland came in with like scantiness of resource in comparison with Cousin Angeline’s dear father, who in every detail of life, so it appeared, was a model of sobriety and goodly thrift. These comparisons, however unpalatable, Cousin Rolland and I came in time to bear with patience; nay, to look forward to with equanimity, as one may become accustomed to any disquieting thing in life. Nor did we ever question anything she said, for Cousin Angeline was not a woman to argue with, much less to contradict in matters about which she had made up her mind. If, indeed, one were so foolish, she had a way of conjuring up something in her own experience that would utterly and forever upset all your arguments, however plausible they might appear. This trait, however, we often notice in good men and women that we know, and so I do wrong, perhaps, to speak of it as peculiar to her. In all Cousin Angeline’s references to Rudley and James, the former, I came to remark, was ever named first. Whether this was because he was older or the more upright of life I never knew—or if I did, have forgotten. Thus they passed, and to my good, I hope; but in the long years that have elapsed since that far-off time I have had, as you may suppose, many curious reflections regarding them; not, indeed, in the way of speculative desire for nearer acquaintance, but rather as to how they fell out in the end—whether they lived on to old age, looked up to and honored by the world, or relaxing because of too great strain, finally fell by the wayside in sheer contrariness of spirit, and so ended their lives in shame, and different from what might have been hoped. Of these details and others of interest I shall now never know, for the connecting-threads by which knowledge might have come to me were long since severed. Thus it has been that at the end of all my cogitations concerning them, I have ever been compelled, and to my great regret, to bid them a new and reluctant farewell. *CHAPTER XXIV* *THE FISHERS* "Fish’ll bite their own tails on a day like this, Gilbert, and will go crazy at sight of a grasshopper," Cousin Rolland remarked one afternoon as we came out from luncheon and were well clear of the house. "Yes," I answered, looking up at the sky, which was overcast with gray clouds. "What do you say, then, to a little diversion—after office hours?" he asked, coaxingly, as if seeking to influence me.