The Colonel burst out laughing. "You are no fool," said he; "that's the second good thing you have said these three years. I forget what the other was, but I remember it startled me at the time. You are a wit, and you will cut out that manikin or you are no son of mine."
"Don't say that, father," said Walter; "and cutting out, why, that's a naval operation, not military. I am not the son of an admiral."
"No equivocation, sir; the forces assist one another at a pinch."
"How can I cut him out?—there's no room, he is tied to her apron strings."
"Untie him, then."
At this moment, whether because Hope attracted everybody in the course of the day, or because talking about people draws them to the place by some subtle agency, who should appear in sight but Miss Julia Clifford, and little Fitzroy wooing her so closely that really he did seem tied to her apron strings.
"There," said Walter, "now use your eyes, father; look at this amorous pair. Do you really think it possible for a fellow to untie those two?"
"Quite possible," said the Colonel. "Walter," said he, sententiously, "there's a little word in the English language which is one of the biggest. I will spell it to you, T—R—Y. Nobody knows what he can do till he gives that word a fair trial. It was far more impossible to scale the rock of Gibraltar; but our infantry did it; and there we are, with all Europe grinding their teeth at us. What's a woman compared with Gibraltar? However, as you seem to be a bit of a muff, I'll stand sentinel whilst you cut him out."
The Colonel then retired into a sort of ambuscade—at least he mingled with a small clump of three Scotch firs, and stood amongst them so rectilinear he might have passed for the fourth stump. Walter awaited the arrival of the foe, but in a spirit which has seldom conducted men to conquest and glory, for if the English infantry had deviated so far from their insular habits as to admire the Spaniards, you may be sure that Gibraltar rock at this day would be a part of the Continent, and not a detached fragment of Great Britain. In a word, Walter, at sight of the lovers, was suddenly seized with sentimental sympathy; they both seemed to him so beautiful in their way. The man was small, but his heart was not; he stuck to the woman like a man, and poured hot love into her ears, and almost lost the impediment in his speech. The woman pretended to be cooler, but she half turned her head toward him, and her half-closed eyes and heightened color showed she was drinking every word. Her very gayety, though it affected nonchalance, revealed happiness to such as can read below the surface of her sex. The Colonel's treacherous ally, after gazing at them with marked approval, and saying, "I couldn't do it better myself," which was surely a great admission for a lover to make, slipped quietly into Hope's workshop not to spoil sport—a juvenile idea which we recommend to older persons, and to such old maids as have turned sour. The great majority of old maids are match-makers, whatever cant may keep saying and writing to the contrary.
"No wonder at all," said Percy, who was evidently in the middle of some amorous speech; "you are the goddess of my idolatry."