I sat in silence for a little time, full of sad thoughts. I was neither handsome nor tall nor brave, but sometimes I had thought myself exceedingly good. As to becoming great, that was another respect in which I felt strong and confident. .
I was undersized—yes, a little undersized. I would grow some, however—possibly to six feet; who could tell? But—my face—there was no dodging that. It was plain, very plain, I could see that myself, and my hair did not curl and was too light, and my beard was not yet born.
Jo interrupted my thoughts. She began to clap her hands in a sudden outburst of enthusiasm.
“I have a grand idea!” she said. “We'll give Fannie a little wedding here if father will let us. I think it would be great fun.”
For half an hour or so we sat, making plans for the wedding. Before going to bed, in the Colonel's room, I gave her my horruck—an act of great generosity. I promised to tell her all about it if she could solve the riddle, and she said that she would try.
I went to bed, and the Colonel returned shortly, very bad. I had drawn his boots and remarked that he looked weary, when suddenly he rose and picked up a foil and began to thrust and parry with a hand raised behind him.
“Ah, you insult me, sir!” he hissed, as he danced on tiptoes in the attitude of a fencer, and drove me across the room. He stopped suddenly, his point on the floor, in a haughty pose, and demanded, “Will you have a blade, sir, and a bout with me?”
“I do not know how to fence,” I said.
“Ah—then you are forgiven,” said he, with a loving smile and a jaunty swing of his head. “But, mind you—mind you, I cannot brook an insult.”
Before the light was extinguished he sent his voice roaring through the still house in two lines of The Last Rose of Summer.