“You know the pony must be sold when we go away.”
As she spoke, an expedient suggested itself to Percy’s mind, and pressing his mother’s hand affectionately, he closed his writing-desk, and, carrying it off under his arm, exclaimed—“Come along, Hugh! we’ll take old Lion (he wants a run, poor dog) as well as the pony, and have a glorious scamper.”
And a glorious scamper they had, only Hugh rode the whole way, and Percy ran by his side, declaring that he greatly preferred it, which was decidedly a pious fiction, if a fiction can ever be pious.
“Oh! mamma, mamma! do make breakfast—come, quick! there’s a good mamma! for I’m as hungry as—as—several sharks,” exclaimed Hugh, rushing like a small express train into the breakfast-parlour, on the following morning.
“Oh, you naughty mad-cap, you’ve shaken the table, and made me blot ‘That Smile’ all over!” cried his sister Emily, in vain endeavouring to repair the misfortune which had accrued to the “popular melody” she was copying.
We suppose it is scarcely necessary to reintroduce you to Emily, dear reader. You have not so soon forgotten the rosebud of a mouth, or the dangerous dimple—trust you for that.
“Well, I declare, so I have,” rejoined the culprit, a little shocked and a good deal amused at the mischief he had occasioned; then striking into the tune of the outraged ditty, he sang in an impish soprano, and with grimaces wonderful to behold—
“‘That smile—when once—de-par-ar-ar-arted,
Must leave—me bro—ken har-ar-ir-arted.’
“Oh! Emily, what a mess we have made of ‘broken-hearted,’ to be sure I’m so sorry, but what fun!”