"Very nice, sir, but he wasn't a bit steady. He was right wild before he got to be King. After that he was splendid."
"Humph! Didn't he steal the crown from the old gentleman's head before the breath was out of his body? I don't call that nice behavior."
"Because he thought his father was dead," cried the girl, forgetting jest and herself in defence of her hero. "If he had been dead, the crown would have belonged to his son. When Prince Henry found out that his father was only in a faint and was coming to, don't you remember how he knelt down and begged pardon, and said,
'There is your crown,
And He that wears the crown eternally—'
That meant God, you know,
'Long guard it yours?'
It wouldn't be fair to lay that up against him, sir."
The Major laid the book gently upon the bench, sighing as he did it. "You are right, my child," he said, in an altered tone. "An older book than Shakespeare says, 'Remember not the sins of my youth.' We won't be hard upon your dear Prince Hal. Your father tells me he is going to send three of you to school."
"Yes, sir. Bea and Dee and me."
"What!" ejaculated Mr. Tayloe, with a short, sharp laugh. He had not spoken during the Shakespearean talk, but fidgeted about the aisle, inspecting the notches and initials cut in the benches, and frowning at the inscriptions upon the walls. "And you called her 'Flea,' didn't you?" he continued. "I never heard anything more ridiculous. Haven't they Christian names?"