d see how she tried
to please him. One day she came down to breakfast with her hair all
done up in the way that was in fashion then, like a grown-up young
lady, and I think Rupert was pleased, though she looked rather funny
and very red. And so Henrietta nursed him altogether, and used to read
battles to him as he lay on the sofa, and Rupert made plans of the
battles on cardboard, and moved bits of pith out of the elder-tree
about for the troops, and showed Henrietta how if he had had the
moving of them really, and had done it quite differently to the way
the generals did, the other side would have won instead of being
beaten.

And Mother used to say, "That's just the way your poor father used to
go on! As if it wasn't enough to have to run the risk of being killed
or wounded once or twice yourself, without bothering your head about
battles you've nothing to do with."

And when he did the battle in which my father fell, and planted the
battery against which he led his men for the last time, and where he
was struck under the arm, with which he was waving his sword over his
head, Rupert turned whiter than ever, and said, "Good Heavens,
Henrietta! Father _limped_ up to that battery! He led his men for two
hours, after he was wounded in the leg, before he fell--and here I
sit and grumble at a knock from a cricket-ball!"

Just then Mr. Bustard came in, and when he shook Rupert's hand he kept
his fingers on it, and shook his own head; and he said there was "an
abnormal condition of the pulse," in such awful tones, that I was
afraid it was something that Rupert would die of. But Henrietta
understood better, and she would not let Rupert do that battle any
more.

Rupert's friends were very kind to him when he was ill, but the
kindest of all was Thomas Johnson.

Johnson's grandfather was a canal-carrier, and made a good deal of
money, and Johnson's father got the money and went on with the
business. We had a great discussion once in the nursery as to whether
Johnson's father was a gentleman, and Rupert ran down-stairs, and into
the drawing-room, shouting, "Now, Mother! _is_ a carrier a gentleman?"

And Mother, who was lying on the sofa, said, "Of course not. What
silly things you children do ask! Why can't you amuse yourselves in
the nursery? It is very hard you should come and disturb me for such a
nonsensical question."

Rupert was always good to Mother, and he shut the drawing-room door
very gently. Then he came rush