Gillian could hardly move for laughing. ‘My dear Dolores, you to be daughter to a scientific man! Don’t you know that the stars are in the sky, going on all the time, only we can’t see them till the sunlight is gone?’
But Dolores was too much offended to attend, and only grunted. She wanted to get the cutting away from Gillian, but there was no doing so.
‘The mist is rising o’er the mead,
With silver hiding grass and reed;
‘Tis silent all, on hill and heath,
The evening winds, they hardly breathe;
What sudden breaks the silent charm,
The echo wakes with wild alarm.
With rapid, loud, and furious rattle,
Sure ‘tis the voice of deadly battle,
Bidding the rustic swain to fly
Before his country’s enemy.’
‘Did anybody ever hear of a sham fight in the evening?’ cried the soldier’s daughter indignantly. ‘There, I can’t see any more of it.’
‘Give it to me, then.’
‘You are welcome! Where did it come from? Let me look. C.H. Oh, did Constance Hacket write it? Nobody else could be so delicious, or so far superior to Milton.’
‘You knew it all the time, and that was the reason you made game of it.’
‘No, indeed it was not, Dolores. I did not guess. You should have told me at first.’
‘You would have gone on about it all the same.’
‘No, indeed, I hope not. I did not mean to vex you; but how was I to know it was so near your heart?’