"Vive! Vive! Vive l'amour
Vive la compagnie!"
Only he, like les autres, sometimes dropped his "r's." They were all nice in their pronunciation. They gave to the broad "a" its fullest due.
"E'en the slight hahbell raised its head
Elahstic from her ahry tread!"
exclaimed George Gordon, as one of the maidens tripped across the lawn. But even he was sometimes indifferent to the rights, as a terminal, of the letter "r"; for only as a terminal does the Southern tongue utterly scorn it. When but a lisping infant, a possible orator was drilled in the test words:—
"Around the rugged rocks
The ragged rascal ran,"
and taught to roll the elusive consonant to the utmost limit.
But I must linger no longer in this enchanted valley among the mountains. A long road lies before me. I must pass swiftly on. With just such trifling events I might fill my book. Dear to every heart are the annals of its youth; before we enter the vast world of—