"Well, I should say so!" she replied. "Your face is a perfect sight. Father, just look at Pen's face."
Colonel Butler adjusted his eye-glasses deliberately, and looked as he was bidden to do.
"Some rather severe contusions," he remarked. "A bit painful, Penfield?"
"Not so very," replied Pen, "I washed 'em off and put on some Pond's extract, and some court-plaster, and I guess they'll be all right."
The colonel was still looking at Pen's wounds, and smiling as he looked.
"The nature of the injuries," he said, "indicates that the fighting must have been somewhat strenuous. But honorable scars, won on the field of battle, are something in which any man may take pardonable—"
"Father Richard Butler!" exclaimed Aunt Millicent. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself! Pen, let this be the last snowball fight you indulge in while you live in this house. Do you hear me?"
"Yes, Aunt Millicent. There won't be any more; not any more at all."
"I should hope not," she replied; "with such a looking face as you've got."
Colonel Butler was temporarily subdued. Only the merry twinkle in his eyes, and the smile that hovered about the corners of his mouth, still attested the satisfaction he was feeling in his grandson's military prowess. He could not, however, restrain his curiosity until the end of the meal, and, at the risk of evoking another rebuke from his daughter, he inquired of Pen: