It is
my question,' and 'You were kind to my lambs, sir,' thoughtless of glory
and dead bones. My father was very differently impressed. He was in an
exultant glow, far outmatching the bloom on our faces when we rejoined
him. I cried,

'Papa, if the prince won't pay for a real statue, I will, and I'll
present it in your name!'

'To the nation?' cried he, staring, and arresting his arm in what seemed
an orchestral movement.

'To the margravine!'

He heard, but had to gather his memory. He had been fighting the battle,
and made light of Bella Vista. I found that incidents over which a day or
two had rolled lost their features to him. He never smiled at
recollections. If they were forced on him noisily by persons he liked,
perhaps his face was gay, but only for a moment. The gaiety of his nature
drew itself from hot-springs of hopefulness: our arrival in England, our
interviews there, my majority Burgundy, my revisitation of Germany--these
events to come gave him the aspect children wear out a-Maying or in an
orchard. He discussed the circumstances connected with the statue as dry
matter-of-fact, and unless it was his duty to be hilarious at the
dinner-table, he was hardly able to respond to a call on his past life
and mine. His future, too, was present tense: 'We do this,' not 'we will
do this'; so that, generally, no sooner did we speak of an anticipated
scene than he was acting in it. I studied him eagerly, I know, and yet
quite unconsciously, and I came to no conclusions. Boys are always
putting down the ciphers of their observations of people beloved by them,
but do not add up a sum total.

Our journey home occupied nearly eleven weeks, owing to stress of money
on two occasions. In Brussels I beheld him with a little beggar-girl in
his arms.

'She has asked me for a copper coin, Richie,' he said, squeezing her fat
cheeks to make cherries of her lips.

I recommended him to give her a silver one.

'Something, Richie, I must give the little wench, for I have kissed her,
and, in my list of equivalents, gold would be the sole form of repayment
after that. You must buy me off with honour, my boy.'

I was compelled to receive a dab from the child's nose, by way of a kiss,
in return for buying him off with honour.

The child stumped away on the pavement fronting our hotel, staring at its
fist that held the treasure.

'Poor pet wee drab of it!' exclaimed my father. 'One is glad, Richie, to
fill a creature out of