y suffering pangs at being away from her nursery and her
eldest boy (for whom she ever has had an absurd infatuation), the
dear hypocrite scarce allowed a look of anxiety to appear on her face;
encouraged me with smiles; professed herself eager to follow me; asked
why it should be a sin in me to covet honour? and, in a word, was ready
to stay, to go, to smile, to be sad; to scale mountains, or to go down
to the sea in ships; to say that cold was pleasant, heat tolerable,
hunger good sport, dirty lodgings delightful; though she is wretched
sailor, very delicate about the little she eats, and an extreme sufferer
both of cold and heat. Hence, as I willed to stay on yet a while on my
native continent, she was certain nothing was so good for me; and when
I was minded to return home--oh, how she brightened, and kissed her
infant, and told him how he should see the beautiful gardens at home,
and Aunt Theo, and grandpapa, and his sister, and Miles. "Miles!" cries
the little parrot, mocking its mother--and crowing; as if there was any
mighty privilege in seeing Mr. Miles, forsooth, who was under Doctor
Sumner's care at Harrow-on-the-Hill, where, to do the gentleman justice,
he showed that he could eat more tarts than any boy in the school, and
took most creditable prizes at football and hare-and-hounds.

CHAPTER XCI. Satis Pugnae

It has always seemed to me (I speak under the correction of military
gentlemen) that the entrenchments of Breed's Hill served the Continental
army throughout the whole of our American war. The slaughter inflicted
upon us from behind those lines was so severe, and the behaviour of the
enemy so resolute, that the British chiefs respected the barricades
of the Americans hereafter; and were they firing from behind a row of
blankets, certain of our generals rather hesitated to force them. In the
affair of the White Plains, when, for a second time, Mr. Washington's
army was quite at the mercy of the victors, we subsequently heard
that our conquering troops were held back before a barricade actually
composed of cornstalks and straw. Another opportunity was given us, and
lasted during a whole winter, during which the dwindling and dismayed
troops of Congress lay starving and unarmed under our grasp, and the
magnanimous Mr. Howe left the famous camp of Valley Forge untouched,
whilst his great, brave, and perfectly appointed army fiddled and
gambled and feasted in Philadelphia. And, by Byng's countrymen,