Page:Lesbia Newman - Dalton - 1889.djvu/314

 were very rough, but so simple and naïf, that I quite took a fancy to them, and was very sorry to hear that one of them had perished, and the other had been crippled on the field of Queenstown. What a dreadful thing war is! That men should spend on mutual destruction the energies given them to be employed for their own and the general welfare! but let us hope the end is in sight, though it has been long in coming. But who’s that with Mrs Guineabush? How are you, Mrs Guineabush? and this is quite an unexpected pleasure, Sir Richard; we understood you were away.’

‘I was, Miss Newman,’ replied Sir Richard Robins; ‘I only came back this afternoon, and found your mother’s note, about five o’clock. What an age since we’ve met! But I see Miss Blemmyketts over there, and I hope I shall see her with you once more in your old place in the hunting-field next season. It'll be a revival of good old days that I thought were gone for ever, and fox-hunting along with them. What times we have been through, Miss Newman! what times! Did any country ever go through such a convulsion as ours, and survive at all? But it does survive after a fashion: the character of old England dies hard.’

‘Bother old England! it’s welcome to die, if only my parrot were alive!’ exclaimed Mrs Guineabush.

‘Depend upon it, he’s only strayed away to some neighbouring wood, Mrs Guineabush,’ said Lesbia, to comfort her. ‘He'll come back when he gets lonely and hungry. I wish I could think the same of Ireland!’

‘I say, Miss Newman,’ observed Sir Richard, ‘your college fare agrees with you; they don’t starve you at Ousebridge evidently; you’re a more muscular Christian than ever.’

‘Yes; well, they give us everything good of its kind there,’ she replied,—‘old beef and old mutton, instead of stuff that’s