hout her husband,
who was to fetch her in the evening; and Mrs. Stubbard came quite
alone, for her walkable children--as she called them--were all up at the
battery. "Can't smell powder too young in such days as these," was the
Captain's utterance; and, sure enough, they took to it, like sons of
guns.

"I should be so frightened," Mrs. Twemlow said, when Johnny (who sat at
the foot of the table representing his father most gallantly) had said
grace in Latin, to astonish their weak minds, "so nervous all the time,
so excessively anxious, the whole time that dreadful din was proceeding!
It is over now, thank goodness! But how can you have endured it, how
can you have gone about your household duties calmly, with seven of your
children--I think you said--going about in that fiery furnace?"

"Because, ma'am," replied Mrs. Stubbard, who was dry of speech, and fit
mother of heroes, "the cannons are so made, if you can understand, that
they do not shoot out of their back ends."

"We are quite aware of that"--Miss Twemlow came to her mother's relief
very sharply--"but still they are apt to burst, or to be overloaded, or
badly directed, or even to fly back suddenly, as I have heard on good
authority."

"Very likely, miss, when they are commanded by young women."

Eliza Twemlow coloured, for she was rather quick of temper; but she did
not condescend to pay rudeness in kind.

"It would hardly be a lady-like position, I suppose," she answered, with
a curve of her graceful neck--the Carnes had been celebrated for their
necks, which were longer than those of the Darlings; "but even under
the command of a most skilful man, for instance Captain Stubbard, little
accidents will happen, like the fall of a shell upon the beach this
afternoon. Some people were close to it, according to the rumour; but
luckily it did not explode."

"How providential!" cried Mrs. Twemlow; "but the stupid people would
have gone without much pity, whatever had befallen them, unless they
were blind, or too ignorant to read. Don't you think so, Faith, my
dear?"

"I don't believe a single word of that story," Mrs. Stubbard cut short
the question; "for the simple reason that it never could have happened.
My husband was to direct every gun himself. Is it likely he would have
shelled the beach?"

"Well, the beach is the proper place for shells; but if I had only known
it, wouldn't I have come a few hours earlier?" said Johnny. "Even now
there must be some