"What we've got to do we just go and do, without thinking about danger. I believe it is often the best wisdom to be blind and let God be our eyes as well as our shield. But would it be right of you, not called to the work, to put yourself in danger because you would not be out where I am in? I could admire of course, but never quite justify sir Philip Sidney in putting off his cuisses because his general had not got his on." "You're fit for a field-marshal, my dear!" said the major enthusiastically--adding, as he kissed her hand, "I will think over what you have said, and at least not betray you without warning." "That is enough for the present," returned Hester, shaking hands with him warmly. The major went away hardly knowing whither, so filled was he with admiration of "cousin Helen's girl." "By Jove!" he said to himself, "it's a confounded good thing I didn't marry Helen; she would never have had a girl like that if I had! Things are always best. The world needs a few such in it--even if they be fools--though I suspect they will turn out the wise ones, and we the fools for taking such care of our precious selves!" But the major was by no means a selfish man. He was pretty much mixed, like the rest of us. Only, if we do not make up our minds not to be mixed with the one thing, we shall by and by be but little mixed with the other. That same evening he sent her word that one answering the description of Cornelius had been descried in the neighborhood of Addison square. CHAPTER XL. DOWN AND DOWN. Down the hill and down!--to the shores of the salt sea, where the flowing life is dammed into a stagnant lake, a dead sea, growing more and more bitter with separation and lack of outlet. Mrs. Franks had come to feel the comforting of her husband a hopeless thing, and had all but ceased to attempt it. He grew more hopeless for the lack of what she thought moved him no more, and when she ceased to comfort him, the fountain of her own hope began to fail; in comforting him she had comforted herself. The boys, whose merriment even was always of a sombre kind, got more gloomy, but had not begun to quarrel; for that evil, as interfering with their profession, the father had so sternly crushed that they had less than the usual tendency to it.