Such a guest reduced Mr. Kendal to absolute silence, but she did not
think he suffered much therefrom, and he was often relieved, for all
the neighbourhood asked the young couple to dinner. Mrs. Cavendish
Dusautoy's toilette was as good as a play to the oldest and youngest
inhabitants of the house, her little sister used to stand by the
dressing-table with her small fingers straightened to sustain a
column of rings threaded on them, and her arm weighed down with
bracelets, and grandmamma's happiest moments were when she was raised
up to contemplate the costly robes, jewelled neck, and garlanded head
of her darling.
When it turned out that Sebastopol was anything but taken, Mr.
Cavendish Dusautoy's incredulity was a precious confirmation of his
esteem for his own sagacity, more especially as Ulick O'More and
Maurice had worn out the little brass piece of ordnance in firing
feux de joie.
'But,' said Maurice, 'papa always said it was not true. Now you only
said so when you found the bells were ringing for that, and not for
you.'
Maurice's observations were not always convenient. Algernon, with
much pomp, had caused a horse to be led to the door, for which he had
lately paid eighty guineas, and he was expatiating on its merits,
when Maurice broke out, 'That's Macheath, the horse that Archie
Tritton bought of Mr. Nugent's coachman for twenty pounds.'
'Hush, Maurice!' said his father, 'you know nothing of it; and Mr.
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