"Then you have got it," said Dolly. "It is the water of life. And you have done with this dry wilderness that mother is complaining of, and you are recommending."
Lawrence stroked and pulled his moustache, as he might have done if a lady had spoken to him in polite Sanscrit. Rupert looked gravely out of the carriage window. Neither answered, and nobody spoke another word, till Mrs. Copley exclaimed, "There's Leipzig!"
"Looks sort o' peaceful now," remarked Rupert.
"Peaceful? Why, ain't the place quiet?" Mrs. Copley asked anxiously.
"Quiet enough," said Lawrence; "but there was a time, not so long ago, when it wasn't exactly so."
"When was that?"
"When all the uniforms of Europe were chasing through it," said Dolly; "some chased and some chasing; when the country was covered with armies; when a half a million of men or so fought a long battle here, and the suburbs of Leipzig were full of dead and wounded and sick and starving; there was not much peace then in or out of the city; though there was some rejoicing."
"Oh," said Mrs. Copley, "you mean"——
"When Napoleon was beaten here, mother."
"War's a mean thing!" said Rupert.