would make me dig, and I could not come to help you!'

'On duty in the trenches. Your sense of duty was exemplary. I
remember your digging on, like a very Casablanca, all alone, in the
midst of a thunder-storm, because Jem had forgotten to call you in,
crying all the time with fear of the lightning!'

'You came to help me,' said Mary. 'You came rushing out from the
nursery to my rescue!'

'I could not make you stir. We were taken prisoners by a sally from
the nursery. For once in your life, you were in disgrace!'

'I quite thought I ought to mind Jem,' said Mary, 'and never knew
whether it was play or earnest.'

'Only so could you transgress,' said Louis,--'you who never cried,
except as my amateur Mungo Malagrowther. Poor Mary! what an
amazement it was to me to find you breaking your heart over the
utmost penalties of the nursery law, when to me they only afforded
agreeable occasions of showing that I did not care! I must have been
intolerable till you and Mrs. Ponsonby took me in hand!'

'I am glad you own your obligations,' said Lord Ormersfield.

'I own myself as much obliged to Mary for making me wise, as to Jem
for making me foolish.'

'It is not the cause of gratitude I should have expected,' said his
father.