"Then his little sister is going to do a very foolish thing, and wants his leave to do it; which if he will grant, she will let him do as many foolish things as he likes without scolding him, as long as they both shall live."
"Do it then, I beg. What is it? Do you want to go up Snowdon with
Headley to-morrow, to see the sun rise? You'll kill yourself!"
"No," said Valencia very quietly; "I only want to marry him."
"Marry him?" cried Scoutbush, starting up.
"Don't try to look majestic, my dear little brother, for you are really not tall enough; as it is, you have only hooked all your flies into your dressing-gown."
Scoutbush dashed himself down into his chair again.
"I'll be shot if you shall!"
"You may be shot just as surely, whether I do or not," said she softly; and she knelt down before him, and put her arms round him, and laid her head upon his lap. "There, you can't run away now; so you must hear me quietly. And you know it may not be often that we shall be together again thus; and oh, Scoutbush! brother! if anything was to happen to you—I only say if—in this horrid war, you would not like to think that you had refused the last thing your little Val asked for, and that she was miserable and lonely at home."
"I'll be shot if you shall!" was all the poor Viscount could get out.
"Yes, miserable and lonely; you gone away, and mon Saint Père too: and Lucia, she has her children—and I am so wild and weak—I must have some one to guide me and protect me—indeed I must!"