And after dinner, and proper attention to the comfort for the night of our benefactor, there was the Blibgims’s party.  No long, confidential interviews, as heretofore, as to what she should wear and what I should wear, and whether it would do to wear it again.  And Polly went in one coach, and I in another.  No crowding into the hired hack, with all the delightful care about tumbling dresses, and getting there in good order; and no coming home together to our little cozy cottage, in a pleasant, excited state of “flutteration,” and sitting down to talk it all over, and “Was n’t it nice?” and “Did I look as well as anybody?” and “Of course you did to me,” and all that nonsense.  We lived in a grand way now, and had our separate establishments and separate plans, and I used to think that a real separation couldn’t make matters much different.  Not that Polly meant to be any different, or was, at heart; but, you know, she was so much absorbed in her new life of splendor, and perhaps I was a little old-fashioned.

I don’t wonder at it now, as I look back.  There was an army of dressmakers to see, and a world of shopping to do, and a houseful of servants to manage, and all the afternoon for calls, and her dear, dear friend, with the artless manners and merry heart of a girl, and the dignity and grace of a noble woman, the dear friend who lived in the house of the Seven Gables, to consult about all manner of important things.  I could not, upon my honor, see that there was any place for me, and I went my own way, not that there was much comfort in it.

And then I would rather have had charge of a hospital ward than take care of that uncle.  Such coddling as he needed, such humoring of whims.  And I am bound to say that Polly could n’t have been more dutiful to him if he had been a Hindoo idol.  She read to him and talked to him, and sat by him with her embroidery, and was patient with his crossness, and wearied herself, that I could see, with her devoted ministrations.

I fancied sometimes she was tired of it, and longed for the old homely simplicity.  I was.  Nepotism had no charms for me.  There was nothing that I could get Polly that she had not.  I could surprise her with no little delicacies or trifles, delightedly bought with money saved for the purpose.  There was no more coming home weary with office work and being met at the door with that warm, loving welcome which the King of England could not buy.  There was no long evening when we read alternately from some favorite book, or laid our deep housekeeping plans, rejoiced in a good bargain or made light of a poor one, and were contented and merry with little.  I recalled with longing my little den, where in the midst of the literary disorder I love, I wrote those stories for the “Antarctic” which Polly, if nobody else, liked to read.  There was no comfort for me in my magnificent library.  We were all rich and in splendor, and our uncle had come from India.  I wished, saving his soul, that the ship that brought him over had foundered off Barnegat Light.  It would always have been a tender and regretful memory to both of us.  And how sacred is the memory of such a loss!