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I was disappointed that Clara’s astonishment was much more moderate than mine.

“He was TOO brave, Tom, dear. He always seemed to be overdoing it just a grain, don’t you think?”

I didn’t think so at the time; I was afraid he was telling the truth. And now, by one of those contradictions inseparable from weak humanity, I regretted that he was not. A hero had tumbled from the family pedestal–a misguided hero, to be sure, but still a hero. My vanity, which in this case was of a complex kind, had received a shock.

I did not recover from it for nearly three months, when I received a second shock of a more serious nature. It came in the shape of a letter, dated at Pensacola, Florida, and written by one Sylvester K. Matthews, advising me that George Flagg had died of the yellow fever in that city the previous month. I gathered from the letter that the writer had been with my cousin through his illness, and was probably an intimate friend; at all events the details of the funeral had fallen to the charge of Mr. Matthews, who enclosed the receipted bills with the remark that he had paid them, but supposed that I would prefer to do so, leaving it, in a way, at my option.

The news of my cousin’s death grieved me more than I should have imagined beforehand. He had not appreciated my kindness; he had not added to my happiness while I was endeavoring to secure his; he had been flagrantly ungrateful, and in one or two minor matters had deceived me. Yet, after all said and done, he was my cousin, my only cousin–and he was dead. Let us criticise the living, but spare the dead.

I put the memoranda back into the envelope; they consisted of a bill for medical attendance, a board bill, the nurse’s account, and an undertaker’s bill, with its pathetic and, to me, happily, unfamiliar items. For the rest of the day I was unable to fix my attention on my work, or to compose myself sufficiently to write to Mr. Matthews. I quitted the office that evening an hour earlier than was my habit.

Whether Clara was deeply affected by what had happened, or whether she disapproved of my taking upon myself expenses which, under the peculiar circumstances, might properly be borne by Flagg’s intimate friend and comrade, was something I could not determine. She made no comments. If she considered that I had already done all that my duty demanded of me to do for my cousin, she was wise enough not to say so; for she must have seen that I took a different and unalterable view of it. Clara has her own way fifty-nine minutes out of the hour, but the sixtieth minute is mine.

She was plainly not disposed to talk on the subject; but I wanted to talk with some one on the subject; so, when dinner was through, I put the Matthews papers into my pocket and went up to my friend Bleeker’s, in Seventeenth Street. Though a little cynical at times, he was a man whose judgment I thought well of.

After reading the letter and glancing over the memoranda, Bleeker turned to me and said, “You want to know how it strikes me–is that it?”

“Well–yes.”

“The man is dead?”

“Yes.”

“And buried?”

“Assuredly.”

“And the bills are paid?”

“You see yourself they are receipted.”

“Well, then,” said Bleeker, “considering all things, I should let well enough alone.”

“You mean you would do nothing in the matter?”

“I should ‘let the dead past bury its dead,’ as Longfellow says.” Bleeker was always quoting Longfellow.

“But it isn’t the dead past, it’s the living present that has attended to the business; and he has sent in his account with all the items. I can’t have this Matthews going about the country telling everybody that I allowed him to pay my cousin’s funeral expenses.”

“Then pay them. You have come to me for advice after making up your mind to follow your own course. That’s just the way people do when they really want to be advised. I’ve done it myself, Wesley–I’ve done it myself.”