“And that is—?”
“Doing more than one’s duty,” exclaimed Rachel, with a glistening eye.
“Very uncomfortable and superfluous, and not at all easy,” he said, half shutting his already heavy eyes.
“Easy, no, that’s the beauty and the glory—”
“Major Sherborne and Captain Lester in the drawing room, my lady,” announced Coombe, who had looked infinitely cheered since this military influx.
“You will come with me, Grace,” said Fanny, rising. “I dare say you had rather not, Rachel, and it would be a pity to disturb you, Alick.”
“Thank you; it would be decidedly more than my duty.”
“I am quite sorry to go, you are so amusing,” said Fanny, “but I suppose you will have settled about heroism by the time we come out again, and will tell me what the boys ought to play at.”
Rachel’s age was quite past the need of troubling herself at being left tete-a-tete with a mere lad like this; and, besides, it was an opportunity not to be neglected of giving a young carpet knight a lesson in true heroism. There was a pause after the other two had moved off. Rachel reflected for a few moments, and then, precipitated by the fear of her audience falling asleep, she exclaimed—
“No words have been more basely misused than hero and heroine. The one is the mere fighting animal whose strength or fortune have borne him through some more than ordinary danger, the other is only the subject of an adventure, perfectly irrespective of her conduct in it.”