Page:The Wreck of a World - Grove - 1890.djvu/152

136 known in the palmy days of the old country, that would have gone through all you have gone through and come out of it alive and in his right mind. Four years utter desolation—or rather such company as was worse than isolation—the company of demons—"

"My dear father, what nonsense. I wasn't afraid of the stupid clumsy things.things." [sic]

"No, that is the most wonderful part of the matter. The bravest of us would never say that. What do you say, William?"

"I say, Sir, that I have got for my sweetheart the bravest and noblest girl that ever blessed God's earth. And how she can ever bring herself to like a common ugly dull stupid fellow like me is one of those wonders that beats me quite as much as the story we have just heard."

And then Aurelia scolded him, and he pretended to be very penitent, and wasn't a bit, and then she scolded him again, and they were reconciled, with all the usual absurdities, which showed me that if Aurelia had the soul of a hero she had the heart of a woman. And then feeling myself in the way I turned into the garden and smoked a pipe, which I much needed as a