“Oh, then, do tell me how is the captain.”
“Very much bruised, very much disfigured, they say,” said she, half smiling; “but not so much hurt in body as in mind.”
“As how, may I ask?” said I, with an appearance of innocence.
“I don’t exactly understand it; but it would appear that there was something like rivalry among you gentlemen chasseurs on that luckless morning, and that while you paid the penalty of a broken head, he was destined to lose his horse and break his arm.”
“I certainly am sorry,—most sincerely sorry for any share I might have had in the catastrophe; and my greatest regret, I confess, arises from the fact that I should cause you unhappiness.”
“Me? Pray explain.”
“Why, as Captain Hammersley—”
“Mr. O’Malley, you are too young now to make me suspect you have an intention to offend; but I caution you, never repeat this.”
I saw that I had transgressed, but how, I most honestly confess, I could not guess; for though I certainly was the senior of my fair companion in years, I was most lamentably her junior in tact and discretion.
The gray dusk of evening had long fallen as we continued to chat together beside the blazing wood embers,—she evidently amusing herself with the original notions of an untutored, unlettered boy, and I drinking deep those draughts of love that nerved my heart through many a breach and battlefield.