“In the Light Dragoons?” asked Rosamond. “Oh! then I knew him at Edinburgh! A man with yellow whiskers, and the next thing to a stutter.”
“I declare, Julius, she is as good as any army list,” exclaimed Charlie.
“There’s praise!” cried Frank. “The army list is his one book! What a piece of luck to have you to coach him up in it!”
“I dare say Rosamond can tell me lots of wrinkles for my outfit,” said Charles.
“I should hope so, having rigged out Dick for the line, and Maurice for the artillery!”
Charlie came and leant on the mantel-shelf, and commenced a conversation sotto voce on the subject nearest his heart; while Cecil continued her catechism.
“Are the Bowaters intellectual?”
“Jenny is very well read,” said Julius, “a very sensible person.”
“Yes,” said Frank; “she was the only person here that so much as tried to read Browning. But if Cecil wants intellect, she had better take to the Duncombes, the queerest firm I ever fell in with. He makes the turf a regular profession, actually gets a livelihood out of his betting-book; and she is in the strong-minded line—woman’s rights, and all the rest of it.”
“We never had such people at Dunstone,” said Cecil. “Papa always said that the evil of being in parliament was the having to be civil to everybody.”