His heart opened a little with the word, and he said how comfortable he and his wife were in their house, and how much they both hated to shut it up.
When March offered him his card, he said he had none of his own with him, but that his name was Eltwin.

He betrayed a simple wish to have March realize the local importance he had left behind him; and it was not hard to comply; March saw a Grand Army button in the lapel of his coat, and he knew that he was in the presence of a veteran.
He tried to guess his rank; in telling his wife about him, when he went down to find her just before dinner, but he ended with a certain sense of affliction.

"There are too many elderly invalids on this ship.

I knock against people of my own age everywhere.

Why aren't your youthful lovers more in evidence, my dear?
I don't believe they are lovers, and I begin to doubt if they're young even." "It wasn't very satisfactory at lunch, certainly," she owned.