“Maynard! If it be the Captain Maynard spoken of in the papers, he’s not such a nobody. At least the despatches do not say so. Why, it was he who led the forlorn hope at C—, besides being first over the bridge at some other place with an unpronounceable name?”
“Stuff about forlorn hopes and bridges! That won’t help him, now that he is out of the service, and his regiment disbanded. Of course he’ll be without either pension or pay, besides a soupçon of his having empty pockets. I got so much out of the servant who waits upon him.”
“He is to be pitied for that.”
“Pity him as much as you like, my dear; but don’t let it go any further. Heroes are all very well in their way, when they’ve got the dollars to back ’em up. Without these they don’t count for much now-a-days; and rich girls don’t go marrying them any more.”
“Ha! ha! ha! Who thinks of marrying him?” Daughter and niece simultaneously asked the question.
“No flirtations neither,” gravely rejoined Mrs Girdwood. “I won’t allow them—certainly not with him.”
“And why not with him, as much as any one else, most honoured mother?”
“Many reasons. We don’t know who or what he may be. He don’t appear to have the slightest acquaintance with any one in the place; and no one is acquainted with him. He’s a stranger in this country, and believed to be Irish.”
“Oh, aunt! I should not think any the worse of him for that. My own father was Irish.”
“Whatever he may be, he’s a brave man, and a gallant one,” quietly rejoined Julia.