sition; else, no doubt, she would have taken
a fancy to a soft young fellow with a literary turn, or a genius for
playing the flute, according to the laws of contrast and nature provided
in those cases; and who has not heard how great, strong men have an
affinity for frail, tender little women; how tender little women are
attracted by great, honest, strong men; and how your burly heroes and
champions of war are constantly henpecked? If Mr. Harry Warrington falls
in love with a woman who is like Miss Lambert in disposition, and if he
marries her--without being conjurers, I think we may all see what the
end will be.

So, whilst Hetty was firing her little sarcasms into Harry, he for a
while scarcely felt that they were stinging him, and let her shoot on
without so much as taking the trouble to shake the little arrows out of
his hide. Did she mean by her sneers and innuendoes to rouse him into
action? He was too magnanimous to understand such small hints. Did she
mean to shame him by saying that she, a weak woman, would don the casque
and breastplate? The simple fellow either melted at the idea of her
being in danger, or at the notion of her fighting fell a-laughing.

"Pray what is the use of having a strong hand if you only use it to hold
a skein of silk for my mother?" cries Miss Hester; "and what is the good
of being ever so strong in a drawing-room? Nobody wants you to throw
anybody out of window, Harry! A strong man, indeed! I suppose there's a
stronger at Bartholomew Fair. James Wolfe is not a strong man. He seems
quite weakly and ill. When he was here last he was coughing the whole
time, and as pale as if he had seen a ghost."

"I never could understand why a man should be frightened at a ghost,"
says Harry.

"Pray, have you seen one, sir?" asks the pert young lady.

"No. I thought I did once at home--when we were boys; but it was only
Nathan in his night-shirt; but I wasn't frightened when I thought he
was a ghost. I believe there's no such things. Our nurses tell a pack of
lies about 'em," says Harry, gravely. "George was a little frightened;
but then he's----" Here he paused.

"Then George is what?" asked Hetty.

"George is different from me, that's all. Our mother's a bold woman as
ever you saw, but she screams at seeing a mouse--always does--can't help
it. It's her nature. So, you see, perhaps my brother can't bear ghosts.
I don't mind 'em."

"George always says you would have made a better soldier tha