“My child!” exclaimed the vicar.
“Bless the girl!” cried Mrs. Aumerle from her chess-board. Cecilia lifted her hands in surprise, while Dr. Bardon laughed aloud.
“O papa! what’s the harm? It is not as if a party of strangers were going on the airy excursion,—people who did not know how to manage. Mr. Verdon is so experienced, he has been up fourteen or fifteen times, and no accident ever has happened. Uncle Augustine goes himself!”
“But because Uncle Augustine chooses to risk his own neck sky-larking amongst the clouds, I see no reason why he should carry my little girl with him on a dangerous excursion.”
“Shakspeare tells us,” said Augustine, coming towards the centre of the room, “that
‘’Tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink,’
but the poet adds
‘Out of the nettle, danger, we pluck the flower, safety.’
When steam-vessels were first introduced it was thought an act of daring to go in one,—when railroads were yet a novelty it was foolhardiness to venture in a train.”