“Hang that clock!” shouted Mr. Fountain; “I'll have it turned out of the room.”
Said Lucy, with gentle enthusiasm, “It must be beautiful to be a sailor, and to have seen the real world, and, above all, to be brave and strong like Mr. ——,. must it not, uncle?” and she looked askant at David's square shoulders and lion eye, and for the first time in her life there crossed her an undefined instinct that this gentleman must be the male of her species.
“As for his courage,” said Eve, “that we have only his own word for.”
David grinned.
“Not even that,” replied Lucy, “for I observed he spoke but little of himself.”
“I did not notice that,” said Eve, pertly; “but as for his strength, he certainly is as strong as a great bear, and as rude. What do you think? my lord carried me all the way from the top of the green lane to your house, and I am no feather.”
“No, a skein of silk,” put in David.
“I asked the gentleman politely to put me down, and he wouldn't, so then I boxed his ears.”
“Oh, how could you?”
“Oh, bless you, he never hits me again; he is too great a coward. And the great mule carried me all the more—carried me to your very door.”