'The very answer you would have made in old times,' cried Louis,
delighted. 'O Mary, you bring me back the days of my youth! You
never would see the giant who used to live in that press!'

'I remember our great fall from the top of it.'

'Oh yes!' cried Louis; 'Jem Frost had set us up there bolt upright
for sentries, and I saw the enemies too soon, when you would not
allow that they were there. I was going to fire my musket at them;
but you used violence to keep me steady to my duty--pulled my hair,
did not you?'

'I know you scratched me, and we both rolled off together! I wonder
we were not both killed!'

'That did not trouble Jem! He picked us up, and ordered us into
arrest under the bed for breach of discipline.'

'I fear Jem was a martinet,' said Mrs. Frost.

'That he was! A general formed on the model of him who, not
contented with assaulting a demi-lune, had taken une lune toute
entiere. We had a siege of the Fort Bombadero, inaccessible, and
with mortars firing double-hand grenades. They were dandelion
clocks, and there were nettles to act the part of poisoned spikes on
the breach.'

'I remember the nettles,' said Mary, 'and Jem's driving you to gather
them; you standing with your bare legs in the nettle-bed, when he