ked in
the same direction.

"O!" said he presently. "I thought as much. The Corporal's there."

The Corporal, a smart figure of a man of thirty, perhaps a thought under
the middle size, but very neatly made,--a sunburnt Corporal with a brown
peaked beard,--faced about at the moment, addressing voluble words of
instruction to the squad in hand. Nothing was amiss or awry about the
Corporal. A lithe and nimble Corporal, quite complete, from the
sparkling dark eyes under his knowing uniform cap to his sparkling white
gaiters. The very image and presentment of a Corporal of his country's
army, in the line of his shoulders, the line of his waist, the broadest
line of his Bloomer trousers, and their narrowest line at the calf of his
leg.

Mr. The Englishman looked on, and the child looked on, and the Corporal
looked on (but the last-named at his men), until the drill ended a few
minutes afterwards, and the military sprinkling dried up directly, and
was gone. Then said Mr. The Englishman to himself, "Look here! By
George!" And the Corporal, dancing towards the Barber's with his arms
wide open, caught up the child, held her over his head in a flying
attitude, caught her down again, kissed her, and made off with her into
the Barber's house.

Now Mr. The Englishman had had a quarrel with his erring and disobedient
and disowned daughter, and there was a child in that case too. Had not
his daughter been a child, and had she not taken angel-flights above his
head as this child had flown above the Corporal's?

"He's a "--National Participled--"fool!" said the Englishman, and shut
his window.

But the windows of the house of Memory, and the windows of the house of
Mercy, are not so easily closed as windows of glass and wood. They fly
open unexpectedly; they rattle in the night; they must be nailed up. Mr.
The Englishman had tried nailing them, but had not driven the nails quite
home. So he passed but a disturbed evening and a worse night.

By nature a good-tempered man? No; very little gentleness, confounding
the quality with weakness. Fierce and wrathful when crossed? Very, and
stupendously unreasonable. Moody? Exceedingly so. Vindictive? Well;
he had had scowling thoughts that he would formally curse his daughter,
as he had seen it done on the stage. But remembering that the real
Heaven is some paces removed from the mock one in the great chandelier of
the Theatre, he had given that up.

And he had come