"
"I am glad to hear you term that notion a conceit, for, certainly, it
was not reason. You soon discovered your mistake, my old mess-mate,
and began to think of home."
"I soon discovered, Miles, that if I had neither father, nor mother,
brother nor sister, that I had a country and friends. The bit of
marble on which I was found in the stone-cutter's yard, then seemed as
dear to me as a gold cradle is to a king's son; and I thought of you,
and all the rest of you--nay, I yearned after you, as a mother would
yearn for her children."
"Poor fellow, you were solitary enough, I dare say--had you no
amusement with your pigs and poultry?"
"For a day or two, they kept me pretty busy. But, by the end of a
week, I discovered that pigs and poultry were not made to keep company
with man. I had consaited that I could pass the rest of my days in the
bosom of my own family, like any other man who had made, his fortune
and retired; but, I found my household too small for such a life as
that. My great mistake was in supposing that the Marble family could
be happy in its own circle."
This was said bitterly, though it was said drolly, and, while it made
Talcott and myself laugh, it also made us sorry.
"I fell into another mistake, however, boys," Marble continued, "and
it might as well be owned.
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