I feel
ashamed of my petulance.
"Do you feel inclined to tell me about your ill news?" I say, gently,
going over to him, and putting my hand on his shoulder. "I have been
making so many guesses as to what it can be?"
"Have you?" he says, looking up. "I dare say. Well, I will tell you. Do
you remember--I dare say you do not--my once mentioning to you that I
had some property in the West Indies--in Antigua?"
I nod.
"To be sure I do; I recollect I had not an idea where Antigua was, and I
looked out for it at once in Tou Tou's atlas."
"Well, a fortnight--three weeks ago--it was when we were in Dresden, I
had a letter telling me of the death of my agent out there. I knew
nothing about him personally--had never seen him--but he had long been
in my poor brother's employment, and was very highly thought of by him."
"_Poor_ brother!" think I; "well, thank Heaven! at least _he_ has not
revived; he would not be 'poor' if he had," but I say only, "Yes?" with
a delicately interrogative accent.
"And to-day comes this letter"--(pulling one out of his pocket)--
"telling me that now that his affairs have been looked into, they are
found to be in the greatest confusion--that he has died bankrupt, in
fact; and not only _that_, but that he has been cheating me right and
left for years and years, appropriating the money which ought to have
been spent on the estate to his own uses; and, as misfortunes never come
single, I also hear"--(unfolding the sheet, and glancing rather
disconsolately over it)--"that there has been a hurricane, which has
destroyed nearly all the sugar-canes.
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