Elfie persisted in her proposal with all the perseverance of the Beast, who daily for a year asked Beauty to marry him.
“Come, pap! buy me a substitute and I’ll promise you not to run away in boy’s clothes, and ’list!”
But still the old man did not deign to answer. All this time, also, Elfie was, as she always had been, in all substantial services a most devoted daughter to her father. She attended to his room, to put all those little finishing touches to its comfort that no one but herself could effect. She kept his clothes in perfect order. She had one of his half dozen pairs of slippers always just where he wanted them. His pipe was always at hand. His pitcher of iced lemonade was never empty. Nothing that tended to his comfort was wanting.
But still the major was inexorable.
“Just look at my pap!” Elfie would sometimes say, “sitting there sulking and distilling bile! If he goes on this way much longer, he’ll make himself so sick I shall have to give him a dose of calomel and jalap!—Pap! you may sulk as long as you please, and make yourself as yellow as saffron, but—if you don’t buy me a substitute I’ll ’list! I will, as sure as I’m the daughter of a hero!”
So at length by coaxing, threatening, wheedling, and bantering, Elfie brought her indulgent old father out of his anger, and so far into her way of thinking that he actually did buy her a substitute. He gave five hundred dollars to a fine young foreigner to represent Elfie in the field.
CHAPTER V.
THE LOVERS’ PARTING.
She weeps the weary day.
The war upon her native soil,
Her lover’s risk in battle broil.—Scott.