Really, he was worth fifty of
me! When he was brought home from Vicksburg with a piece of shell in
his skull, my poor mother began to think she had n't loved him enough. I
remember, as she hung round my neck sobbing, before his coffin, she told
me that I must be to her everything that he would have been. I swore in
tears and in perfect good faith that I would, but naturally I have
not kept my promise. I have been utterly different. I have been idle,
restless, egotistical, discontented. I have done no harm, I believe, but
I have done no good. My brother, if he had lived, would have made
fifty thousand dollars and put gas and water into the house. My mother,
brooding night and day on her bereavement, has come to fix her ideal in
offices of that sort. Judged by that standard I 'm nowhere!"
Rowland was at loss how to receive this account of his friend's domestic
circumstances; it was plaintive, and yet the manner seemed to him
over-trenchant. "You must lose no time in making a masterpiece," he
answered; "then with the proceeds you can give her gas from golden
burners."
"So I have told her; but she only half believes either in masterpiece or
in proceeds.
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