ad seized my sword, and wanted vi et
armis to defend the cause of Learning and the People against military
brigands on the spot. If I had not fallen we should have had one or two
other prostrate bodies.

A silly business on all sides.

CHAPTER XXXIII. WHAT CAME OF A SHILLING

The surgeon, who attended us both, loudly admired our mutual delicacy in
sparing arteries and vital organs: but a bullet cuts a rougher pathway
than the neat steel blade, and I was prostrate when the prince came to
press my hand on his departure for his quarters at Laibach. The utterly
unreasonable nature of a duel was manifested by his declaring to me,
that he was now satisfied I did not mean to insult him and then laugh
at him. We must regard it rather as a sudorific for feverish blood and
brains. I felt my wound acutely, seeing his brisk step when he retired.
Having overthrown me bodily, it threw my heart back to its first
emotions, and I yearned to set eyes on my father, with a haunting sense
that I had of late injured him and owed him reparation. It vanished
after he had been in my room an hour, to return when he had quitted it,
and incessantly and inexplicably it went and came in this manner. He was
depressed. I longed for drollery, relieved only by chance allusions to
my beloved one, whereas he could not conceal his wish to turn the stupid
duel to account.

'Pencil a line to her,' he entreated me, and dictated his idea of
a moving line, adding urgently, that the crippled letters would be
affecting to her, as to the Great Frederick his last review of his
invalid veterans. 'Your name--the signature of your name alone, darling
Richie,' and he traced a crooked scrawl with a forefinger,--"Still,
dearest angel, in contempt of death and blood, I am yours to eternity,
Harry Lepel Richmond, sometimes called Roy--a point for your decision
in the future, should the breath everlastingly devoted to the most
celestial of her sex, continue to animate the frame that would rise on
wings to say adieu! adieu!"--Richie, just a sentence?'

He was distracting.

His natural tenderness and neatness of hand qualified him for spreading
peace in a sick-room; but he was too full of life and his scheme, and
knowing me out of danger, he could not forbear giving his despondency
an outlet. I heard him exclaim in big sighs: 'Heavens! how near!' and
again, 'She must hear of it!' Never was man so incorrigibly dramatic.

He would walk up to a bookcase and take do