The girls had to smile at this, as there was never a time when Cousin Lizzie did not have a proverb ready to suit the occasion.
“Yes, but the fire might not have been of his kindling,” insisted Nan.
“Please tell us what the trouble is, Cousin Lizzie, if you don’t mind talking about it,” begged Douglas. “Has Lewis really left West Point for good? I can’t believe it.”
“The trouble is: ‘Evil communications corrupt good manners.’ If Lewis had not been with the companions that he has chosen, he would not have gotten into this trouble. Surely Solomon was wise indeed when he said: ‘Whoso keepeth the law is a wise son, but he that is a companion of riotous men shameth his father.’ I am glad my poor brother is dead and not here to witness his son’s disgrace.”
“Cousin Lizzie, I do not believe that Lewis has done anything disgraceful,” insisted Nan, speaking almost quickly for once.
“Well, it is a disgrace in my mind for the son and grandson of Confederate soldiers to be dismissed from a Yankee institution, whether he was in fault or not. ‘As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place.’ A Somerville’s place is in the South and it was always against my wishes that Lewis went to West Point.”
“Please tell us what the trouble is, what Lewis did or didn’t do at West Point,” said Helen in the determined voice that usually made Cousin Lizzie stop her proverbs long enough to give the information required.
“‘Hazing a plebe,’ is what he said. What a plebe is or what hazing is I do not know, but whatever it is, Lewis says he was not mixed up in it, but he, with eight other second classmen, were let out. The words are his, not mine. All I know is that he was discharged and is at my house now in a state of dejection bordering on insanity.”
“Poor boy! We are so sorry for him. What is he going to do now?” asked Douglas.
Here was another disappointment for Douglas. Her cousin, Lewis Somerville, was one of the dearest friends she had in the world. He was two years her senior and had made it his business since they were tiny tots to protect her and look after her on all occasions. They had had a plan for the following year that now, of course, had fallen through. She was to have come to West Point from Bryn Mawr to the finals. He would then have been a third classman and able to make her have a rip-roaring time, as he had expressed it.