“Why, Charles Pitt, what have you done to your shoulder?”
Charlie grinned. There, on the left shoulder, was a chalk shield. “Teacher, of course, must have time to make our silk shields, and so we got up these.”
Aunt Stanshy’s eyes let out some funny, bright sparks.
“O, no, it’s only the grand march.”
“The grand march!”
“Yes, and see here, aunty. I have only this chalk shield, and you don’t want your boy to go that way. Please let me take that old sword above the sitting-room mantel-piece,” pleaded Charlie, with beseeching eyes.
“Grandsir’s sword? O that wont do. Why, that sword was at the battles of Quebec and Banker Hill and Waterloo and—”
Constantia! In her loyalty to grandsir’s memory, she was unconsciously mentioning places he had never been in! All this array of names only fired Charlie’s ardor. At last Aunt Stanshy said, “There, take it! The next thing, I spose, you’ll want me.”
“We may; but you’d have to dress up in man’s clothes, you know.”
“Never!” said Aunt Stanshy, firmly. “Don’t go out of the lane with grandsir’s sword!”