“But he escaped?” cried she.
“That he did, and carried his prisoner safe into the lines, and presented him to the General, modestly remarking, 'He is safer here than over yonder,'—pointing to Sebastopol; and, strangest part of the whole thing, he turns out to be an Englishman.”
“An Englishman?”
“Yes. He was serving, by some strange accident, on General La Marmora's staff, as a simple orderly, though evidently a man of some education and position,—one of those wild young bloods, doubtless, that had gone too fast at home, but who really do us no discredit when it comes to a question of pluck and daring.”
“Do us no discredit!” cried she; “and have you nothing more generous to say of one who has asserted the honor of England so nobly in the face of an entire army? Do us no discredit! Why, one such feat as this adds more glory to the nation than all the schemes of all the jobbers who deal in things like these.” And she threw contemptuously from her the colored plans and pictures that littered the table.
“Dear me, Miss Kellett, here's a whole ink-bottle spilled over the Davenport Obelisk.”
“Do us no discredit!” burst out she again. “Are we really the nation of shopkeepers that France calls us? Have we no pride save in successful bargaining, no glory save in growing rich? Is money-getting so close at the nation's heart that whatever retards or delays its hoardings savors of misfortune? When you were telling me that anecdote, how I envied the land that owned such a hero; and when you said he was our own,—our countryman; my heart felt bursting with gratitude. Tell me his name.”
“His name,—his name,—how strange that I should have forgotten it; for, as I told you, I toasted his health only yesterday.”
“Yes, you remember the sherry!” said she, bitterly.
Mr. Hankes's cheek tingled and grew crimson. It was a mood of passionate excitement he had never witnessed in her before, and he was astounded at the change in one usually so calm and self-possessed. It was then in no small confusion that he turned over the letter before him to find something which might change the topic in discussion.