into a fortress where my aunt had secured the windows with feather-
beds--'

'You had better make haste and tell, that the true edition may be
preserved,' said Mary, rallying her spirits in her eagerness.

'I have begun to understand why there never yet has been an authentic
account of a great battle,' said Louis. 'Life would make me coincide
with Sir Robert Walpole's judgment on history. All I am clear about
is, that even a Red Republican is less red than he is painted; that
Isabel Conway is fit to visit the sentinels in a beleaguered castle--
a noble being-- But oh, Mary! did I not long sorely after you when.
it came to the wounded knight part of the affair! I am more sure of
that than of anything else!'

Mary blushed, but her tender heart was chiefly caring to know how
much he had been hurt, and so the whole story was unfolded by due
questioning; and the Earl had full and secret enjoyment of the signal
defeat of his dear sister-in-law, the one satisfaction on which every
one seemed agreed.

It was a melancholy certainty that Mary must go to Mrs. Frost, but
the Earl deferred the moment by sending the carriage with an entreaty
that she would come herself to fetch her guest. Mary talked of
writing a note; but the autumn sun shone cheerily on the steps, and
Louis wiled her into seating herself on the upper step, while he
reclined on the lower ones, as they had so often been placed when
this was his only way of enjoying the air. The sky was clear, the
air had the still calm of autumn, the evergreens and the yellow-
fringed elms did not stir a leaf--only a large heavy yellow plane