rost.
'That he was! A general formed on the model of him who, not contented
with assaulting a demi-lune, had taken une lune toute entiere. We had
a siege of the Fort Bombadero, inaccessible, and with mortars firing
double-hand grenades. They were dandelion clocks, and there were
nettles to act the part of poisoned spikes on the breach.'
'I remember the nettles,' said Mary, 'and Jem's driving you to gather
them; you standing with your bare legs in the nettle-bed, when he would
make me dig, and I could not come to help you!'
'On duty in the trenches. Your sense of duty was exemplary. I
remember your digging on, like a very Casablanca, all alone, in the
midst of a thunder-storm, because Jem had forgotten to call you in,
crying all the time with fear of the lightning!'
'You came to help me,' said Mary. 'You came rushing out from the
nursery to my rescue!'
'I could not make you stir. We were taken prisoners by a sally from
the nursery. For once in your life, you were in disgrace!'
'I quite thought I ought to mind Jem,' said Mary, 'and never knew
whether it was play or earnest.'
'Only so could you transgress,' said Louis,--'you who never cried,
except as my amateur Mungo Malagrowther. Poor Mary! what an amazement
it was to me to find you breaking your heart over the utmost penalties
of the nursery law, when to me they only afforded agreeable occasions
of showing that I did not care! I must have been intolerable till you
and Mrs. Ponsonby took me in hand!'
'I am glad you own your obligations,' said Lord Ormersfield.
'I own myself as much obliged to Mary for making me wise, as to Jem for
making me foolish.'
'It is not the cause of gratitude I should have expected,' said his
father.
'Alas! if he and Clara were but here!' sighed Louis. 'I entreated him
in terms that might have moved a pyramid from its base, but the Frost
was arctic. An iceberg will move, but he is past all melting!'
'I respect his steadiness of purpose,' said the Earl; 'I know no young
man whom I honour more than James.'
His aunt and his son were looking towards each other with glistening
eyes of triumph and congratulation, and Mrs. Frost cleared her voice to
say that he was making far too much of her Jemmy; a very good boy, to
be sure, but if he said so much of him, the Marys would be disappointed
to see nothing but a little fiery Welshman.
CHAPTER IV.
THISTLE-DOWN.
Lightly soars the thistle-down,
Lig
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