“Yes.”
“His arrests in irons?”
“All—everything; and what are they, save the boyish excesses of one who, carried away by high spirits, and buoyed up by the flattering sense of relationship to a great and distinguished name, has been led on to follies by the mere native warmth of temperament? It is easy to see how little he thought of himself, and how much of his uncle!”
The old General shook his head dubiously.
“There, dear uncle,” said she, pressing him into a seat before a table with writing-materials, “take that pen and write.”
“Write what, dear child?” said he, with a softness very different from his usual manner.
“I know nothing of the forms, nor the fitting phrases. All I want is that Frank should have his sword-knot.”
“You have learned the proper word, I see,” said he, smiling, while he balanced the pen doubtingly in his fingers “The Colonel of his regiment is an imperial prince.”
“So much the better, uncle. A Hapsburg will know how to reward a Dalton.”
“So, then, we begin thus,” said the old General, whose half-suppressed smile showed that he was merely jesting with her eagerness: “'Imperial Highness,—the Cadet von Dalton, whose distinction it is to be the grand-nephew of a very old soldier, and the brother of a very young princess—'”