"Tanto fortior tanto felicior!" cried the little Father, his fresh, round face beaming with sheer content.
"So, so, young lady! we have heard the story," put in the minister, full of courtly bows, in which those suggestions of a shapely calf had a fair field. "True is it that Fortis cadere, cedere non potest. Ah, Lady George! I have to express my great thankfulness that a dreadful bereavement has been spared you, under Providence, by our dear young friend's courage; or, rather, by her wisdom, since, without the quick thought, the former would have been useless. In this case, to paraphrase the saying, tam Minerva quam Marte, as even a soldier must allow."
"You will not find me backward, sir, in acknowledging either Miss Carmichael's wisdom or her courage," replied Paul, thus challenged; but his tone had that suggestion of a hidden meaning in it, to which Lady George objected, and rightly, as bad form; so she covered it by a remark upon the beauty of a boy, who stood holding open the gate.
"He is a little like that crayon portrait of you when you were a boy, Paul," she added cheerfully.
"He is old Peggy's grandson," replied Marjory, "and as he has been left to Dr. Kennedy's care, I am to look after him. He will be my first pupil."
"Then the likeness will soon disappear," said Paul, in a low voice, as he passed out.
"Perhaps he will be not the worse of that," retorted Marjory, in the same tone.
"I don't know. Men who are brought up by women are generally prigs."
"And women who have been brought up by men?" she asked sharply, not thinking of herself or her past.
"Are brave," he said quietly.