Mary, seated on Archy's other side, now came to her sister's rescue, while Colonel Baskerville, with a grin, prepared to enjoy seeing the young ones having it out, hammer and tongs.
"My sister is not accustomed to such familiarity as 'my dear' from strangers, even if you are a cousin," she severely remarked.
"Mary!" was Mrs. Langton's next protest.
"Isn't she?" said Archy. "I beg a thousand pardons. The last little girl I had much to do with was a darling of ten years old—Dolly Curtis—and I used to ride her on my shoulder and steal apples for her from the stores; and I thought, perhaps, you and your sister—but never mind."
Isabel and Mary took refuge in silent indignation, exchanging wrathful glances; Mrs. Langton looked distressed, Colonel Baskerville highly amused, and Lord Bellingham's handsome old face was quite impassive. Archy, as if to show that Isabel and Mary were quite too childish to have any claim upon the attention of a young man of nineteen, then turned to his grandfather and said, airily:
"By-the-way, sir, the conduct of Captain Curtis at Gibraltar is second only to that of General Eliot, and we Americans congratulate ourselves that these two officers were not in Virginia with Lord Cornwallis. It might have delayed the surrender considerably."
An electric shock ran round the table at that. The old butler quietly removed a decanter that was handy at Lord Bellingham's elbow, and Mrs. Langton looked ready to faint. But, to everybody's amazement, after a moment's pause, Lord Bellingham suddenly smiled; his laugh was quite silent in contrast to the happy ripple that had been his throughout youth, and which he had lost during a long course of selfishness and bad temper.
Then Colonel Baskerville shouted, and Mrs. Langton smiled, and Archy, with a fine assumption of addressing two very small children, remarked to Mary and Isabel:
"Haven't you heard the news, my dears? Lord Cornwallis, on the 19th day of last October, surrendered his whole force to General George Washington. Didn't know it, eh? It's a shame that you are kept so cooped up in the nursery that you never know what is going on in the world"; and then even the two girls laughed while they scowled.
The dinner was very jolly after that. The girls continued to snap at Archy, and he gave it them back in his best style; but it was good-natured snapping, and it so amused Lord Bellingham and Colonel Baskerville that Mrs. Langton not only permitted the girls to defend themselves, but she even smiled faintly at the scrimmage. Nevertheless, when Archy and Colonel Baskerville were parting for the night, Archy said, in a grave manner: