lavender bonnet. At that signal I was to rush forth, seize my
bride, and fight my way to the lane. There a junction would be
effected between myself and the colonel; and putting our brides
behind us, between ourselves and the palings, we were to conquer or
die.

The enemy appeared, - approached. Waving his black flag, the
colonel attacked. Confusion ensued. Anxiously I awaited my
signal; but my signal came not. So far from falling, the hated
Drowvey in spectacles appeared to me to have muffled the colonel's
head in his outlawed banner, and to be pitching into him with a
parasol. The one in the lavender bonnet also performed prodigies
of valour with her fists on his back. Seeing that all was for the
moment lost, I fought my desperate way hand to hand to the lane.
Through taking the back road, I was so fortunate as to meet nobody,
and arrived there uninterrupted.

It seemed an age ere the colonel joined me. He had been to the
jobbing tailor's to be sewn up in several places, and attributed
our defeat to the refusal of the detested Drowvey to fall. Finding
her so obstinate, he had said to her, 'Die, recreant!' but had
found her no more open to reason on that point than the other.

My blooming bride appeared, accompanied by the colonel's bride, at
the dancing-school next day. What? Was her face averted from me?
Hah? Even so. With a look of scorn, she put into my hand a bit of
paper, and took another partner. On the paper was pencilled,
'Heavens! Can I write the word? Is my husband a cow?'

In the first bewilderment of my heated brain, I tried to think what