ever has it been known of me that I swallowed an
insult."'

'Then, papa, I shall have a talk with the squire.'

'Make good your ground in the castle,' said he. 'I string a guitar
outside. You toss me a key from the walls. If there is room, and I
have leisure, I enter. If not, you know I am paving your way in other
quarters. Riversley, my boy, is an excellent foothold and fortress:
Riversley is not the world. At Riversley I should have to wear a double
face, and, egad! a double stomach-bag, like young Jack feeding with the
giant--one full of ambition, the other of provender. That place is our
touchstone to discover whether we have prudence. We have, I hope. And we
will have, Mr. Temple, a pleasant day or two in Paris.'

It was his habit to turn off the bent of these conversations by drawing
Temple into them. Temple declared there was no feeling we were in a
foreign country while he was our companion. We simply enjoyed strange
scenes, looking idly out of our windows. Our recollection of the
strangest scene ever witnessed filled us with I know not what scornful
pleasure, and laughed in the background at any sight or marvel
pretending to amuse us. Temple and I cantered over the great Belgian
battlefield, talking of Bella Vista tower, the statue, the margravine,
our sour milk and black-bread breakfast, the little Princess Ottilia,
with her '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 m